After looking at Beilby's photo realist paintings I felt compelled to watch the other gallery visitors look at the art work. The artist's observation of life is so intriguing, it forced me to step back and observe with the same eye for detail. What I saw was a dual reality, in the art and in the gallery, blending into a single surreal experience

The exhibition reveals how the artist has moved beyond just painting objects with verisimilitude to infusing his images with truth. His early work The Revenge of the Pink Panther is an excellent depiction of the Windsor theatre painted in 1975, when the building was white. Other then marvelling at how well Beilby draws the scene and shows the edifice in need of a new coat of paint, there's little else to ponder. The same can be said about The Great Australian Landscape of 1982. This pile of crushed car bodies is brilliantly rendered to reveal different levels of corrosion, soil collecting and new grass fighting for survival in an inhospitable environment. But these well crafted subjects are inanimate and will never evoke our sympathy.

By the nineties the artist brings humanity into his art, not just the human presence, but a broad range of physical and psychological attributes so we can relate to the subject and create a personal narrative. In Happy Hour at the National (1990) we have a mixed collection of personalities gathered in a front bar. The painting shows us more then how precisely the artist can render textures, it displays a variety of human moods from bravado to boredom via body language. We know these people, or at least others just like them, so we can imagine their 'story'.

This portrayal of the psyche is articulated beautifully, and more humorously, ten years later in Life in the Fast Lane. The look on the face of the middle aged tough guy, as he glares at a bright young man on a flash motorcycle, speaks volumes about jealousy and lost opportunities. His "you know, once I was ..." look is so human and just as real as the sheen on the bike. Then there's the perfect mixture of concentration, determination and hesitation on the face of the sculptor as she confronts The Moment of Truth (1991) prior to converting a block of cold stone into a female figure.

As for a range of physical truth, The Day After the Storm (2000) offers a fascinating collection of bodies rather then poses. The age of the swimmers is not just defined by type of bathing suit, height or hair colour but by the elasticity of skin, muscle tone and level of confidence at baring so much of the body on the beach. Then there is the proud posture of the slightly imperfect bronzed Aussie, who will never see himself as others do, for obvious reasons, in The Cottesloe Saunter (2000). This little painting is a perfect tribute to realism and truth  in art and humanity.

When viewing Beilby's paintings you'll be tempted to examine the surface only. By all  means do so and be impressed by the illusion it supports. I noticed how visitors to the gallery enjoy studying each canvas up close, inspecting every drawn and painted object to see how real it looks. But to increase your enjoyment of the experience, stand back and look further then the picture and find the truth. For instance, while viewing Saturday Night Live (2001) I overheard others marvelling at the artist's rendering of the wrought iron balustrade on the hotel, how it looks so real. And it certainly does, but reality is better served by the laughter at the doorway inviting us into the pub and the warm welcoming atmosphere created by the glowing reds and golden yellows that saturate the composition. It's more then realism, it's a fact of life and truth be told, this is an excellent exhibition of art.