Signature Luxury Travel & Style
ART TRAILS
Daylesford artist Allan Wolf-Tasker reveals the roots of his inspiration
Landscapes have long influenced artists. For Monet, it was his garden in Giverny; for Van
Gogh, it was his interpretation of the Saint-Rémyde-Provence view from his asylum window; and for Allan Wolf-Tasker it is his humble home, Daylesford.
Ask anyone who knows of this pocket of Victoria and you’ll hear the name ‘Wolf-Tasker’ mentioned just as many times as mineral springs and goldmines. The low-altitude countryside here, somewhat reminiscent of northern Italy, is where Australian artist Allan Wolf-Tasker lives with his equally talented wife, Alla.
The town’s gold rush history plays a large role in its identity, from architecture to historical sites.
“I’m sitting 100 metres from where they found gold,” Allan says. “It’s one of the older settled areas in Australia, and it’s beautiful. You can see an extraordinary mix of architecture from when the Europeans settled here and built with the colour of the Earth to when the British settled, bringing pediments and Tudor-style windows.”
For a landscape painter, the region offers an equally rich bounty, but for Allan, it is merely a surrounding that he rewrites in his own hues.
“If you have a keen eye you will notice things people step over, no matter where you are,” he says.
This statement could not be truer. Allan is a master at finding colour – even in the drabbest of places.
He transcribes delphinium blue from a headland and can pick a single tint from a leaf to unruly express across a stretched canvas.
He starts with a thumbnail sketch, then a drafting process followed by layering colours until he accepts that it is done.
“I grab a stool and sit in the middle of the bush, but I don’t just paint what I see, I look further for colour – it’s there, in small quantity – and I use it to expand the palette,” he says. “It’s quite a process and it can take some time, but I’m always working on more than one painting at a time.”
When in his early twenties, Allan’s studies abroad introduced him to the world’s greatest artists – his mentors, he calls them. “We are isolated in Australia, so I understand why book production is important. But when you travel and see the galleries in real life, the paintings, the buildings – it blows your mind,” he says.
Inspired by impressionists, both past and present, Allan explains he’s never wanted to be pigeonholed as such by specialising in one style. Rather, he wants to be a Monet, a Cézanne, a Hockney – a man of many hats.
Allan’s wife Alla is a chef; one day she asked Allan to build her a little place in the country. Her dream was to have a restaurant that was a destination, to which Allan replied, “We can do that.” From then he donned the hat of a builder, an architect and designer.
“I acquired a spot of land; it was riddled with blackberries and on the edge of a swamp. People thought we were crazy to build here, but we saw the potential – it was going to be substantially beautiful,” he reminisces.
More than 30 years later, the Lake House in Daylesford is an award-winning restaurant and lodging, where visitors can taste local cuisine, see Allan’s artworks hanging on the walls and sleep in stylish rooms surrounded by country charm.
“I look at the place and pour a glass of red – look at what we did,” Allan says proudly.
While Alla’s heart is in hospitality, Allan’s is art. “After two years focusing on the restaurant, I’m glad to be back in the studio,” he says.
Allan is currently working on a set of ink-wash and pastel drawings for an upcoming book about the establishment’s farm, as well as a children’s book and a new drawing series that will look at people entertained by the environment.
Wolf-Tasker will long be a name associated with Daylesford. The family revived a forgotten town, convinced its locals to ditch cheese toasties and submit to luscious tarte tatin, and brought its panorama to the world through art.
The Wolf-Tasker’s were not the founders of Daylesford, but they are pioneers. allanwolftasker.com