Biography

1961 – Born in Sydney to parents who were both artists.

1966 – Creates first memorable drawing of Rock Sullivan, from the Flintstones TV cartoon.

1969 – Wins first award age 8 for Health Week Schools competion

1975 – Wins award for Design Car of the Future for the Holden Motor Company

1979 – Graduates High School at Marist Brothers North Sydney

1982 – Graduates School of Design as Graphic Designer

1983 – Works as advertising airbrush illustrator

1990 – Portrait and landscape painting begins

1992 – Studies portraitue at the Royal Art Society

1993 – Wins Highly Commmended Award in the Drumoyne Art Prize

1996 – Begins work with Apple Computers to create digital art and websites

1999 – Creates Logosafe – Digital Asset Manaagment company or online storage of artwork

2002 – Recreates the Bananas In Pyjamas in 3D digital illustations for the ABC

2004 – Creates Happy Customers word of mouth social networking website

2008 – Begins to paint abstract expressionism paintings

2021 – Creates the Bower Bird Collective – 10,000 unique hand painted & generated image NFT’s (non fungible tokens) on the Ethereum blockchain

Artist since an early age

Ever since recalling the buzz of doing his first drawing that drew critical acclaim, artist Greg Gillespie has been creating images of beauty and meaning for the world to enjoy.

Even though that first moment of praise was at age five and the critics where his parents, Jim and Betty (artists in their own right)after seeing a cartoon he had drawn of the Flintstones character ‘Rock Sullivan’, Greg learned that good art produced good reactions.

His first award came 3 years later when he entered a local schools competition for Health Week.

Such was his confidence in his art, that upon returning from a family holiday, Greg’s first thought was to rush to the letterbox to see if there was any notice of him winning the competition.

Greg came second and earned himself $15 for his efforts.

After many amateur art competition successes, Greg decided that the career of commerical artist seemed like the right path to choose. So after completing high school, he went on to qualify for the prestigeous Randwick Tafe College Graphic Design course.

Completing his studies 2 years later, Greg began freelancing as an advertising illustrator, specialising in airbrush art. Gaining high acclaim for his award winning illustrations, Greg continued to create works that remained in high demand throughout the 1980’s and early 1990’s.

As change swept through the advertising industry Greg tried his hand at various other ideas and inventions that brought about moderate success to outright failure over the next 10 years.

Mastering whatever he put his hand to, Greg has enjoyed the diverse fields of web design, 3D animation and web application development.

Along the way of his commercial art career Greg had various spouts of enthusiasm in fine art, and the early 1990’s were a particular highlight where he studied portraiture at the Royal Art Society in Kirrabilli Sydney.

Enter 2008 and renewed passion for fine art surfaces as Greg begins painting abstract landscape paintings. With representation in one of Sydney’s most prestigious and most respected galleries, Maunsell Wicks of Paddington (formerly Barry Stern’s).

Presently working on the Bower Bird Collective online NFT community project in 2021.