It's the smell of Brisbane "maybe the frangipani and hibiscus" that Living National Treasure painter Margaret Olley says makes her feel as though she has never left whenever she returns.
Musing about her years as an art student in Brisbane during World War II in conversation with Brisbane art dealer Philip Bacon at QUT Gardens Theatre, Ms Olley said "Brisbane was a little bit grim in those days, troops, blackouts, restrictions."
She rejoiced in being stuck in a traffic jam the day before her QUT visit because it had given her a chance to watch the sun set on Kangaroo Point cliffs.
"The light in Brisbane is quite different from Sydney especially in the wintertime. Brisbane lends itself to a painter's eye," she said.
Ms Olley was in town for the opening of Breaking New Ground: Brisbane Women Artists of the Mid-Twentieth Century, at QUT Art Museum which features her work and William Dobell's Archibald Prize-winning 1948 portrait of her.
The exhibition also contains the work of Margaret Cilento - Olley's "inherited" friend by virtue of their schooldays at Somerville House and Sydney flatmate - Pamela MacFarlane, Joy Roggenkamp, Kathleem Shillam and Betty Quelhurst. It is on until at QUT Art Museum in George Street until September 30.
For more information, visit http://www.artmuseum.qut.com/exhibit/news-event.jsp?news-event-id=10822
