“For years now,” Mal Gilmour wrote in the preface of his 1982 limited edition book, “I have privately involved my early interest in poetry with the style of painting I practise today. Sometimes I feel the poem or prose is the prelude to the actual painting.”

What followed in that book of paintings and prose poems was quintessential Gilmour: backwaters near Mooroopna, Murchison in the early morning, a river road, ghostly gums left behind by floodwaters:

Looking out over a quiet corner and finally at peace with the river.

An occasional water bird or a rising fish moves,

And he watches, deep and alone.

The life of this painter is now crowded in to his studio and the workplace he shares with his wife Wendy behind their home at 7 Tarnagulla Road in Inglewood.

There are the famous landscapes from his early exhibitions dating back to the first one man show in 1968. The series of shows at Kew Gallery in Melbourne and with Graeme Norris Galleries, who said Mal Gilmour’s “adherence to an artistic style” was a sure sign of “sincerity”, an artist “true to his art”.

In Murchison in the 1980s, he continued unceasingly working on that sincere style he employed to capture the essence of the bush he loved. His annual exhibitions were legendary, until, dogged by ill-health, he was forced to cancel for several years.

For some years, he ceased painting. But recovery found him back at the easel, exhibiting once again in his Clermont studio gallery.

In 2006, he moved to Inglewood, and evolved a new chapter in this life at the easel, developing his technique to create miniatures of the bush scenes that are his hallmark. He is the painter around the corner, now a fixture in the town and influential. He has mentored small groups of artists for many years, encouraging through showing, inspiring through passion.