PRO Hart's paint explodes on to the canvas. Literally. Always experimenting, he has fired paint from cannons, dropped it from planes, even from hot air balloons.
'It's serious painting,' he said. 'They always work out all right. You always have to have something new. The whole thing is an experiment, painting. I don't think you ever get there. Once you get there and get into a groove I think you've had it.
'I've been painting since I was seven. I'm 66 now and I've just started.' Hart is one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. Works that sold for A$80 (about HK$460) in his first exhibition in Adelaide in 1962 now change hands for more than A$5,000.
His experiments even run to carpets - in Australia Hart, who's lively and good humoured, has gained new prominence for his advertisements for an easy-to-clean carpet. Hart creates a work of art on the carpet, using foods and sauces ranging from mustard to ketchup. His cleaning lady removes it in disgust.
'That is an art form,' said Hart. 'You're using different material but it's still art. I was allowed to do them my own way - it's got to be your own inspiration or it won't work.' Pro Hart was born in Broken Hill in the New South Wales Outback and still lives there. Home is a two-acre spread with his family home, five studios and a gallery housing his art collection - one of Australia's largest. Two warehouses accommodate what can't be hung. Thousands of visitors go to Broken Hill to see not only the works of Hart and other leading Australians, but his Monets and Rembrandts. He also has a commercial gallery in downtown Broken Hill and one in Adelaide.
Although he has remained true to his home town, Hart's work has been exhibited worldwide, from New York to Cairo, Singapore to Jerusalem, and he travels widely. His first Hong Kong exhibition was staged by then-Sydney art consultant and gallery director Shirley Wagner, who showed here regularly before opening her own gallery in Central.
Wagner says Hart arrived with his wife, Raylee, five children and his mother and was captivated by the crowds and vibrancy. They made an immediate and lasting impact on his work, she says.
