Their art work is exhibited across Australia and around the world, but Robert ‘Alfie’ Hannaford and Alison Mitchell-Hannaford call Peter’s Hill home, and for now, it is where they ‘set their paintbrushes down’ and find much inspiration for their work.
WORDS: Gabrielle Hall
PHOTOS: John Kruger
The late afternoon sun streams in among the trees, undergrowth now green and lush.
The days are pushing out longer, and Robert ‘Alfie’ Hannaford’s eyes light up as he speaks with wife, Alison Mitchell-Hannaford, of the way the light is dancing across the ground.
Labrador/poodle cross Ruskin, Alfie and Alison’s constant companion, has excitedly greeted his guests, and gives a gentle nudge while awaiting a thrown tennis ball.
Nestled among the hills of the Belvidere Ranges at Peters Hill – near Riverton – Alison and Alfie’s home has no shortage of beauty to inspire the work that makes them both renowned artists.
“I love the fact that it’s so quiet here, we’ve got the view of the great western sky and we sit out there in the evening and watch the sun go down and it’s so quiet,” Alfie said.
“The bats come out and after dark the Mopoke might call down the valley and it’s just such a delight to have that experience.
“To go outside and walk down to the studio, as I did last night, and when there’s no moon we see the heart of the Milky Way, which we’re so lucky to see in the Southern Hemisphere.
“Sometimes it’s so spectacular, this quietness and beauty, it’s one of the reasons I love the bush.”
Alfie – affectionately nicknamed by an uncle after Alfie Obbs, a character in the early Australian radio comedy Mrs Obbs – is an internationally-renowned artist of portrait, sculpture and landscape.
He has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize close to 30 times – although he admits he has not kept count – and is a is a three-time Archibald Prize People’s Choice Award winner, along with a swag of other accolades.
Alison also has an admirable collection of acknowledgements, among them, a finalist in the 2023 STILL National Still Life Award. She has also exhibited extensively, including New York in 2020.
While she is mostly known for her still lifes, she is equally adept at landscapes and portraiture and has painted murals, illustrated books, shared her art through teaching, and is a fluent signwriter – a talent shared with Alfie.
From their studios adjacent the farmhouse, where again, the light is both coveted and celebrated, Alfie and wife Alison speak of their preference for painting from real life.
They manage to capture light, shade and realism, almost freakishly photographic in the detail and clarity.
Alfie has painted and sculptured some of the most famous faces – Queen Elizabeth and Don Bradman (whose statues stand outside Government House and Adelaide Oval respectively), Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Dame Joan Sutherland.
He has also painted many of the least known faces, equally as detailed, without prejudice in his work.
It is a privilege that has given him audience to so many household names, since his early 20s, but all without fuss, Alfie is hesitant to name any standouts.
“I have met some fascinating people,” he said.
“I’ve painted probably 300-400 different portraits and it’s a happy coincidence that just by continuing to do what I love, you come across so many different people.
“I get to know people quite well because it does take usually a week or so to paint them, and I see them every day for days. I get to know them in a way that many people wouldn’t have the opportunity.”
For Alison, having graduated from Adelaide University with first class honours in anthropology, and keenly observed nature since her very early years, her art extends beyond the obvious.
It comes naturally for her to fully “engage with a theme”.
“My exhibition ‘Unlemon – a meandering tale of citrus’ was first shown in the Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Garden,” Alison said.
“It told the history and imminent demise of citrus from a bacteria not yet in Australia.
“The anthropologist in me really likes to dig beneath the surface and put a narrative to it to fill it out.”
THE EARLY YEARS
Alison was born in Malaysia of English/Malay heritage but migrated to Mount Gambier with her parents when she was two and a half.
It was there where she grew her passion for nature and the outdoors, always surrounded by a big garden and lots of animals, riding horses and weekends of “botanising plants” and finding and naming birds and orchids with her family.
In many ways, her upbringing was not too dissimilar from Alfie’s.
He grew up on a farm, not far from where the couple is now based, the third of four children, and a fifth generation Hannaford in the area.
“It was a fantastic childhood, we were free and spent a lot of time up in the hills or down at the creek playing with tadpoles, and exploring the hills, the Belvidere Ranges and over the back into the natural scrub,” Alfie said.
“I had a pet kangaroo – Hoppy – that I used to walk all over the property with, over the hills and everywhere.”
SETTING DOWN ROOTS
While he moved away for school and work, Alfie eventually returned to the area, buying and then renovating a derelict farm house, where sheep had taken up residence.
It is the same home Alison and Alfie share today, having set down their roots there after their wedding on the property in 2007.
Married atop a hill, surrounded by saplings, with a reception in the local church hall, it was a nod to the pair’s shared conservation interests.
Alison’s appreciation was sown in those early years in the South East, her father also heavily involved in conservation.
Meanwhile, Alfie co-founded the Bushland Conservation Company some 50 years ago, with land on the south coast of Kangaroo Island and the Tothill Ranges (Mid North) dedicated to regeneration.
Alfie says he had a strong appreciation for the land from a young age, and also for those who roamed before him.
His ‘Aboriginal woman and child’ sculpture in Riverton exquisitely captures the story of the region’s Ngadjuri culture.
“I became aware of the culture that lived here before white people when I was very young,” Alfie said.
“My grandfather pointed to a spot where he said that when he was a kid at the end of the 19th century, he remembers Aboriginal people being there, and that surprised me as a six-year-old.
“I’ve been conscious of the fact and when you sit up on the Belvidere Range and look out, the topography would have been exactly the same when they looked out.
“I always just wondered how their perception and thoughts would have differed, and that interest in Aboriginal culture has just grown with me.”
Home is where the art is
Well-travelled and with their art in demand, the couple could live anywhere in the world, and Alison says “home is where you put your paintbrush down”, and wherever her chooks are.
But for now, they are content living in their piece of paradise, surrounded by nature and finding inspiration all around them.
– See Alfie and Alison’s art work on display at their Riverton Light Gallery, 54 Torrens Road, Riverton, open most Sundays. www.rivertonlightgallery.com
