For many years I had wanted to produce a series of paintings depicting some episodes in the life of an Australian actor Errol Flynn, the dashing Hollywood film-hero of many swashbuckling films, but also a self-confessed anti-hero in his own life, the likes of which could rival the fictitios anti-hero of a Russian writer M.Y. Lermontov, who penned the famous, 'Hero of our time".

Having dedicated over a year of my life to the project, I researched Errol's life and produced fifty paintings: symbolically, a painting for each year of his life.

The reason for this affection for Errol has nothing to do with his film career, but with the physical reality that there do exist some rare samples of humans, who are lovable rogues: those who are weak but seem strong; those who are so beautiful they take our breath away – and our better sense; those who can – when they want to, or need to – charm their way out of any predicament: be it a firing squad, a harsh scrutity of a judge, or a betrayal of a friend.

I know a number of people with the traits and attitudes of Errol. This means that he is not alone. But where he is unique, and shall always remain so, is in the era that he lived: the era of the golden-age of Hollywood, when any excess was not just permitted but encouraged.

But this priviledge was only offered to those who were charismatically handsome and beautiful enough to reap financial rewards for the movie moguls.

Errol was one of those rare, beautiful but flawed birds: a "wild colonial boy" who 'made it' but was never acknowledged for all his achievements by his nation of birth.

Instead, this nation pretends to celebrate the spirit of a larrikin, but in reality prefers to extol the memory of cold blooded murderers, like Ned Kelly, rather than the harmless likes of Errol Flynn.

The pictures presented are not in any cronological order of Errol's life, but in the order they were painted.