From working with Le Corbusier in the '50s to teaching in Sydney, then painting from a tin shed in the Fleurieu area, artist Henny van den Wildenberg has had many lives.

It was a search to be closer to nature that brought Henny to Australia, but only after he tried several other modes of existence in Holland.

He was originally an art student, but then became an industrial engineer when he realised art had little in the way of career prospects. It was working with Phillips in this capacity that brought Henny alongside modern architecture pioneer Le Corbusier and electronic music trailblazer Edgard Varèse. The pair were developing Poème électronique – the eight-minute art installation that screened insider the Le Corbusier-designed Phillips Pavillion at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels – and Henny was seconded to help develop the lighting for the experience.

But even working closely with some of the era’s greatest creative minds couldn’t redeem the industrial design profession for Henny, who had come to perceive the field as “purely commercial”. So he packed that in, and decided to try something else – teaching.

“I thought ‘I want fresh air and I want to see the sun’ so I went to Australia,” says Henny.

That was in 1961, and he found a job at the National Art School of Sydney. His life took him back and forth between Holland and Australia several more times before he finally settled in South Australia. Despite all this change, Henny’s compulsive desire to make art has remained constant throughout his 93 years.

“There’s nothing else you can do but paint,” he says.