Premium Portfolio - June 2006

Jason Benjamin, David Boyd, Jeffrey Makin

Jason Benjamin is a Sydney based artist and has been exhibiting since 1989. His creative talents saw him work as a chef and in the music industry before fully dedicating himself to an art career.

Over the last decade, Benjamin has shown extraordinary perseverance in his rise to be regarded as the hottest young artist in Australia. The Australian Art Collector Magazine, has short listed Jason Benjamin in its ‘Top 50 Most Collectable Australian Artists’ alongside the critically acclaimed names of Blackman, Olsen, Whitley, Boyd and Nolan.

Benjamin has received a number of national art awards as well as being included in many institutional collections. He has exhibited extensively in Australia (often selling out before opening night) as well as London, Tokyo, Singapore and New York.

David Boyd  is one of Australia's leading established artists whose career began in the late 1950's with the internationally recognised group of artists, "The Antipodeans". 

These beautiful and delicate collagraphs, made in conjunction with master printmaker Paul Smith, differ from other print works in that they strongly reflect Boyd's oils during his best period during the 1970s. The complexity of the images, the delineation of space and form and the depth created by these works translate Boyd’s technique into the print medium without sacrificing any of the traits for which his paintings are famous.

With a cool blue sky and strong use of ochre and brown- Boyd refers to this as his “winter palette”. The subject is actually the artist’s grand daughter, captured firstly in oil in the early 80s.  Boyd focuses on the “child in the bush” to describe European vulnerability within the Australian landscape, a theme to which he has returned for decades. 

In the ten years to date, the works of David Boyd have had a 15.2% compound annual growth in the secondary art market. His etchings have seen the highest growth rate of all his works at 17.8%. 100USD invested in 1997 in a work by David Boyd had an average value of 592 USD in April 2006. (Source: Artprice.com )

Jeffrey Makin is one of Australia’s most influential artists. As a painter, printmaker and academic, he has a vision of the landscape that one cannot simply classify. His extraordinary understanding of the language and the history of image making combine in his work to convey a subtleness of light and structure of the landscape.

Makin is an artist at the height of his skills, who in the same breath successfully delves into the drama of the sublime whilst contemplating a contemporary pastoral arcadia. His long time collaborator, John Olsen in the book Australia Felix: The Landscape of Jeffrey Makin (published by Macmillan Press) describes the artist; “You are rare, very rare the way that you have given yourself to landscape and offhand, I know of no other Australian artist that has done so with such singular passion.”

Makin's highest commission price to date is $100,000.00 for a piece produced for the Hilton Hotel, Brisbane, whilst his auction record stands at $30,000. Makin is well placed in his career, with a sellout solo exhibition at Barrack Gallery in 2005.  This has a significant bearing on the demand for his work and therefore the expectation that prices will continue to rise.

Portfolio Summary

The June Premium Portfolio brings together three major players in the Australian art scene.  All at varying stages of their career, Jason Benjamin, David Boyd and Jeffrey Makin are highly acclaimed artists and are vastly popular for their unique styles and approachable subject matter.  David Boyd, now in his eighties and at the height of his career is producing exceptional work at prices that continue to escalate.  His style is perfectly suited to the print medium and the high demand for editioned works has seen exceptional returns in recent years.  The secondary market for his paintings is regularly seeing prices well above the high end estimates being achieved.  Jason Benjamin has rapidly built his career over the last 5 years from relatively unknown to one of Australia's most watched and sought after talents.  He is developing a solid secondary market with paintings commanding between $30,000 to $40,000 on average at auction.  His technique and subject matter are ideally suited to printmaking and a very solid market has developed for Benjamin in this medium.   Jeffrey Makin is one of the country's most accomplished landscape artists.  His vivid, sculptural style has attracted private and corporate collectors around the country with price tags of $30,000 to $40,000 for major works.  His exceptional drawing skills can be fully appreciated in the etching medium and the Tasmanian pastoral scene Calstock is a fine example. A complimentary signed copy of Makin's catalog from his recent exhibition at Deakin University will be included with this portfolio.  The book illustrates 64 drawings that were created by the artist between 1978 and 2006.

All current and past indicators suggest the mid to long term capital appreciation potential for artworks by David Boyd, Jason Benjamin and Jeffrey Makin are exceptional.  This coupled with an already realized corporate rental demand make this portfolio an outstanding proposition for investors and collectors.  The suite of works hangs beautifully together, with the quality of the art works ranking in the highest echelon of printmaking.