He has drawn on those youthful experiences to create a series of works about childhood, now on display at the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre on View Street in Bendigo.

The splashes of colour and contrasting darkness of his work tell stories of the region, of playtime with friends, and having nine sisters.

“I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of being from an amazing family,” Mr Day said. 

“I was the second youngest of the family and given the freedom most days to run around the neighbourhood and play with friends and I just wanted to explore, not so much in a nostalgic way, all the bad and the happy bits, the sad bits and the loving bits.”

He was the recipient of the Julie Miller Markoff Visual Arts Award, which supports a La Trobe University visual arts student to become a successful exhibiting artist. 

Mr Day has been a practicing artist for more than 30 years.

He won the Mason Family Trust award in 2014, and has completed both a Fine Arts degree and, more recently, finished his Honours degree in Visual Arts. 

Addressing a crowd of supporters gathered to mark the occasion, Mr Day thanked those who had contributed to his work and his growth as an artist.

Special thanks went out to Julie Miller Markoff, who saw in his work an honest and approachable quality she felt would resonate with others. 

Ms Miller Markoff said Mr Day’s application was by far the clearest of a number of submissions about memory.

“His work is not very sentimental,” she said.

“He is very clear in his memory and what it means – he’s very direct and has a lovely use of materials.”

She founded the award out of a love of contemporary art and a desire to foster more of it.

“The hardest thing for an artist is to have a strong prominence,” Ms Miller Markoff said. 

She said giving the award recipients a platform to exhibit their work and produce a catalogue would help develop that prominence.

“It is what he can do with it that I am really hoping to sponsor,” she said.

“This is the beginning of a difference for him in his work and who buys his work.”

The exhibition closes on August 14.