RETIRED surgeon David Bleakley didn’t mind getting trapped in Tasmania during the pandemic. He was staying at his second home, the old Ross school that he’d purchased in 2015, while showing some Canadian friends around the area when the borders closed. It was easy for him to simply bunker down in the town he had grown to love and started painting postcards to send to friends back home on the Sunshine Coast.
That was in 2020, the lead-up to Ross’s bicentenary year in 2021, and neighbours Nigel and Helen Davies saw his beautiful watercolours postcards, depicting scenes of Ross, and they challenged him to complete 200 artworks to celebrate 200 years. “I said that’s impossible, but I’ll try,” David laughed.
By the beginning of 2021 when he finally went home he had completed 60 paintings, and then further border restrictions meant he had to postpone his return to Tasmania until he eventually came back about four months ago. Since then his tally has risen to 110, admitting the project was great incentive to keep working.
Most paintings depict something in Ross, from the obligatory bridge and treelined streetscapes to sheep and goats he’s spotted in fields. In some artworks he’s inserted horses and carts and other elements from another time. His latest drawing is of Eddie Freeman, the local chainsaw carver.
“Eddie is also a handyman and supplies my firewood. I had to call on him to help me remove nine metres of chimney flue which had six metres of solid packed dead bees in it!” David said. “That’s him helping me on the roof, he said, pointing to the stunning detailed sketch entitled Eddie Saves the Day.
At nearly 80 years of age and 20 years past retirement, David said painting had been his hobby most of his life. “I loved art in primary school — I was living in Brisbane then — and I won a Sunday Courier Mail national art competition which really boosted me on,” he said. “I do some acrylics but mainly watercolours – it’s just so portable and you need limited equipment.”
That portability proved handy when David started training in medicine in Brisbane and then Rockhampton, including a stint as a medical student in a mission hospital in the remote highlands of New Guinea. Fascinated by the place and two years into his degree without an inkling as to what he wanted to specialise in, he returned to take up a 21-month contract with the New Guinea government. “I had no intention of being a surgeon, but a job came up in Port Moresby and it was the only training job in the country recognised by the Australian College of Surgeons and I was appointed. “It was fascinating as every day something unexpected would happen, some kind of major trauma, payback killings and the like, and I had to do everything.
“I also lectured in the medical facility, teaching anatomy and I picked up so many skills. “As well as that I established a medical learning resources centre for the medical faculty where I was able to use some of my artistic skills. “Trainees from the Royal Melbourne Hospital would come up and train every six months on rotation and I’d be teaching them how to operate, having basically taught myself with minimal oversight from the only two specialist surgeons in Port Moresby aside from an obstetrician and an eye surgeon.”
Encouraged by his New Guinea mentors David returned to Australia and passed the primary surgical exam on his first attempt before heading to Christchurch, New Zealand, for his final year of training. He became the superintendent surgeon at Mackay Hospital and then Nambour Hospital before going private as a general surgeon on the Sunshine Coast. Right throughout the development of his surgical career he painted and occasionally sold some works to friends and relatives. “I’ve only ever exhibited twice, and that was well over 30 years ago,” David said. “I don’t sell my work, not even online, I guess I’m just not that good at self-promotion. “This exhibition at Ross will be my big effort and I’m not putting much on the paintings, most are between $30 and $400.”
David’s For The Love of Ross – A bicentennial project will open on Friday, December 9 at the old Ross School, 14 Bridge St, Ross at 4pm.
It will remain open for the following two days from 11am until dusk. Also on sale will be three different calendars he has produced, each displaying 12 different works. Cost will be $29 for small and $49 for the bigger size.