Arts
8 January, 2026
SUMMER READING: Bill going with the flow
Inglewood artist Bill Offord talks about his journey
“I OFTEN say to people, if you’re going to be a painter you need to be other things as well,” local artist Bill Offord says about what inspires his work.
Bill opened his studio in Inglewood two years ago, originally located in the store next door, now Carlie’s Clothing, while his current studio was being renovated.
Having migrated from England to Australia in 1966, Bill spent several years travelling around Australia in a caravan, painting the various landscapes he saw as he travelled. He then came to Inglewood for the first time during Covid-19 and stayed for a while due to lockdowns. After that Bill continued to travel Australia before eventually returning to Inglewood to stay, “I don’t travel much anymore, too old” he said, but his experiences while travelling have stayed with him and are often inspiration for his work.
“I’ve been a truck driver and a factory worker amongst other things, and a lot of my inspiration has come from experiences I had while on the road,” he said. Bill spent time in the Grampians and the Blue Mountains while travelling and fondly incorporates elements of their landscapes into his work.
While Bill sticks to the traditional art style with his pallet knife creations, he never likes to try and replicate exact landscapes, “I found when I would do plein air painting I would get annoyed that the landscape didn’t look exactly how I wanted it to look, often, I’d look at the scene and think there should be more trees or less trees, or the river wasn’t on the right angle. So, I wouldn’t paint exactly what I saw, instead I would change it to what felt right to me.”
Bill’s artwork is a mixture of his perspective of places he’s been and of his current surroundings. This method means he very rarely sits and thinks about what the end result will be, rather he goes with the story the art wants to tell.
“I just go along with where the painting flows, it shapes itself, I’m just the one holding the knife,” Bill says.
For some artists a mistake would need to be covered but Bill embraces his mistakes and lets them guide him, “I was painting a seascape when I put a dob of purple in the middle of the sky, I have no idea how I managed that but when I looked at it I began to see a face and that changed what I had planned to paint.”
Bill’s passion for art started with many drawings when he was around 10 years old and he’s stuck with art since then. He is a self-taught painter and sculptor and has exhibited his work in various galleries across eastern Australia. He works with a variety of mediums, including oil painting and watercolour while incorporating both historical and contemporary elements of Australian life into his art.
In addition to his pallet knife paintings Bill also makes bronze sculptures, “they’re great to work on to take a break from a painting. I can take half an hour away from a painting, work on a sculpture and then come back with fresh eyes,” he said.
The wax moulds he makes for the sculpture make switching between painting and sculpting easy and he can continue to be creative while taking a break from a project.
Many of Bill’s ideas come to him during his daily life, “if I sat in a studio all day, I’d never have fresh ideas, I let the ideas come to me and I go from there,” he says.
“I follow the story the art creates, and it always seems to work itself out. I’m not sure why but it just does, maybe I just happen to be painting at the right time.”
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