"About a week ago I dropped in on Stefan Maguran. He lives in a house with walls covered in canvases. Different sizes and styles. I sit down and a huge monkey looks back at me with melancholy of glowing eyes. The picture must be bigger than a square metre. "Did you paint that Stefan?" I ask, he replies "Yes it took me about half an hour, it was one the early ones I did".Early ones means about two years ago. I dont know how old he is and I dont want to guess but he is old enough to be my father and they both drive pretty much the same cars. He started painting two years ago. I diont know quite how readical a shift that was. Did he do little drawing through out his life or think about it? Appently it started as gifts for his daughters wedding and it didnt stop.He was an elecrical engineer and he could have designed something in your fuse-box. The radical turn around and recent uptake, quite prolific too, of art practice has given him a zeal of a teenage art student.A passion and ideological relentlessnes that is usually burnt out by this point. Breaking free from structured blue-prints into dripping and pouring paint.The rational electrical design background mixed with spontanious brush stabbbing insticts is unique. The mid-life conversion to painting has created an outsiderwho wants to break in through the back door with a crow-bar. He will jimmee the lock and drag in his canvases weather the owners like it or not.Covering his walls is a collection of his own work but others too. He surounds himself with works by other people, originals not prints, to form a stimulating environment from any angle. The Outsider festival is his latest baby. A project that will last a month and involve many interesting create forces in South Australia and elsewhere even tracking down work from oversees. Surrounding himself with creativity is what makes him feel most alive. He loves to practice art but is also very interesting in others creativity.Its almost as if someone has said "You cant make a festival!" and he is relentlessly proving them wrong . Multi-platform ranging from music, video, painting and more to be announced, Stefan is forging his own reality. To take up art practice all of a sudden and jump ahead with an Outsider art festival only two years later is quite inspiring."Mike Retter
