Tasman Island Residency.
It was mid-2025 when I received an invitation that was impossible to ignore: a five-day residency on Tasman Island with the volunteer group Friends of the Island (FOTI), the dedicated caretakers of the island’s historic houses and rugged landscape. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity!
By March this year, the long-awaited trip had finally arrived and on a perfectly still, crystal-clear morning, I climbed aboard a helicopter and lifted off from south-east Tasmania, bound for the island. The flight was short but spectacular. Though Tasman Island lies only about 420 metres from the mainland, it feels like an entirely separate world.
As the helicopter touched down on the small, windswept island, the first thing that captured my attention was the lighthouse — a tall, white iron tower rising proudly above the landscape, commanding the horizon like a silent sentinel.
Encircling the island are immense dolerite cliffs, their dark, vertical faces plunging dramatically into the steel-blue waters below. Against this powerful backdrop, the island’s vegetation painted its own softer palette — layers of greens and yellows shifting with the light.
My visit happened to coincide with FOTI’s annual working bee, when volunteers gather to carry out maintenance on one of the island’s three historic houses. Between the quiet focus of their work and the vast openness of the island, the atmosphere felt both purposeful and wonderfully remote.
During my stay, I produced a series of plein air paintings, each one attempting to capture the changing light and subtle shifts in colour across the landscape. Most days greeted us with clear blue skies and gentle winds — conditions that, I was told, are surprisingly rare on such an exposed island. While beautiful, the brightness meant working under intense light, pushing me to simplify and respond quickly.
The most magical moments came in the early hours. Rising before sunrise each day, I watched the island slowly reveal itself in delicate, fleeting colours — soft violets, pale golds, cool blues — before the harsher daylight washed them away. Painting in these moments meant working fast, chasing those brief atmospheric shifts. It was challenging, but incredibly rewarding when it came together.
Between direct observation, plein air studies, photographs, and drawings, I left the island with a rich collection of visual material — a treasure trove of references that will undoubtedly inform future studio paintings and gallery works.
Tasman Island has a way of getting under your skin. Its wild cliffs, open skies, and sense of isolation stay with you long after you leave.
I sincerely hope to return one day to immerse myself in this remarkable place again. And perhaps next time, I’ll meet it in a different mood — under brooding clouds and the dramatic weather of the Southern Ocean.
Clifford How
March 2026
