Parallel Lives: The Beatle eyes off the working class painter

Adelaide, 1963.

The city hums with anticipation. The Beatles have arrived, and the streets are lined with thousands, each hoping for a fleeting glimpse of the Fab Four.

Among them, a teenage boy from Adelaide High, Kim Tuckey, locks eyes with George Harrison as the car glides past. A moment frozen in time.

Was it the magnetic pull of rock and roll or the creative spirit itself that left an imprint on Kim that day? One could muse that their lives followed parallel paths, though one became a global icon, the other found his voice in a different art form.

George Harrison, born February 1943, in Liverpool, grew up in a working-class home, his early musical influences shaped by Django Reinhardt and Hoagy Carmichael. Music became his escape, his obsession, his destiny.

Kim Tuckey, born in March 1950, also came from working-class roots.

However, while music fueled George’s rise, Kim’s creative journey took a different course. Initially absorbed in his sheet metal work apprenticeships, his business, family, and love for cars, he found himself asking, “What next?” The answer came in the form of acrylic paint and canvas, inspired by artists like Jeffrey Smart, Albert Namatjira, De Lempicka, and Dorrit Black.

Inspiration from everyone and everything

Kim is a walking art history class.

At every stroke, or swirl of paint across a canvas, is the story of yet another famous artist, painting style, or art house. The pictures each tell a story. From Mrs Durrell references or “plein air” painting to the black dancer Josephine Baker or Jeremy Boot the bird painter, they all come at you. This man could talk under water. However, the conversation about his art projects is mesmerising.

Perhaps the seeds of that artistic eye were planted much earlier. At 17, while travelling to Katherine, NT, with a friend, Kim found himself stranded in Alice Springs, waiting for a broken-down bus to be fixed. “The things we get up to as a 17-year-old, right?” he muses.

And yet, what stayed with him most wasn’t the misadventure. It was the landscape.

In that vast, sunburnt terrain, he saw echoes of Albert Namatjira’s work. In the dribs and drabs of life, you can tell when something is good, he reflects. Albert got the landscape right. That’s exactly what it looks like.

For George, art was an exploration of sound and spirituality. For Kim, it was an answer to restless curiosity.

Both pursued their passions with intensity, carving out legacies that, while vastly different, shared a common thread: a relentless pursuit of creative expression.

We ask where would we can see his artwork?

Kim remains primarily on Instagram. He updates regularly and also shares via his personal Facebook with his latest car restorations (another hobby we should delve further into…).