'I'm frightened of humans, but I like landscapes'

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Reg Mombassa has been a mainstay in Australian pop culture for more than 40 years, both through his band Mental As Anything and his iconic artworks.

He painted his first landscape at just 15 and has developed an intense fascination with both wilderness and buildings ever since.

He shares some of his favourite artworks and the inspiration behind them, which appear in a new book The Landscapes of Reg Mombassa.

Touring around Australia and New Zealand with rock bands has provided ample subject matter for pictures. I developed the habit of doing swift charcoal drawings of the passing landscape as we drove. Some of these I would exhibit as they were, and some would be coloured in later at my home studio. I also frequently took reference photographs with a throwaway cardboard camera.

I started painting suburban houses because that is what I could see from my bedroom window. Later I would paint pictures of my childhood homes, partly as a reflection on family history but also as a mark of respect for my father, who built all of the houses we lived in. There was also a semi-abstract aesthetic to the slabs of even white or pastel of the house exteriors, which contrasted interestingly with the busier, richer, darker appearance of the surrounding landscape.

I have always been fascinated by telegraph poles. As a small child they suggested the romance and mystery of far-off places as they vanished into the distance beside a road or railway line.

Charcoal is the greatest drawing implement known to humans. It is the simplest and most ancient art material: a stick of burnt wood. Our ancestors used charcoal to produce the first artworks on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago.

Apart from the fact that the Sydney Opera House is a distinctive and iconic structure, it is interesting from the viewpoint of an artist in that it totally changes shape according to where you are observing it from.

The quiet beauty and solitude of [the village of Cassilis, in NSW] certainly lends a monastic quality to being there ... I have drawn these trees assiduously, becoming well acquainted with the ones I am attracted to. They are my friends now.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Artist Reg Mombassa chats to ABC News Breakfast (ABC News)

Topics: arts-and-entertainment, painting, australia