years, creating art in his limited spare time. Despite the cultural stimulation New York offered, Doolin was unsatisfied professionally and artistically, and took on extra work to save money for an extended trip to Europe in 1961. Doolin subsequently embarked on what might best be described as a cultural pilgrimage to some of the major art and historical centers of Europe. The artist was particularly influenced by works of Dutch and Italian Renaissance masters and contemporary abstract artists. Re-energized, Doolin settled into a rented a house on the island of Rhodes and painted, inspired by the mosaics he had viewed throughout southern Europe, and most notably, Ravenna, Italy. His work during this period featured jewel-like patterns and bright colors. The "frontal structure" and "flattened space" of these smaller paintings would become enduring influences in his later work. While in Greece, Doolin met and later married Leslie Edwards, a young Australian woman. The artist, returning to New York stimulated by his marriage and extended stay in Europe, was now "fiercely determined to be a painter." Artificial landscapes Returning to New York, Doolin again worked as a commercial artist, painting in his spare time. Inspired by Al Held and other Hard-Edge painters, he began working on a series of "geometric abstract paintings that would become known as Artificial Landscapes." These landscapes dealt with man-made as opposed to natural environments, and "related directly to the streetscapes of his [Greenwich Village] neighborhood - road signs, building walls, darkened doorways, and billboards from the semi-industrial area close to the docks." These works were "often divided horizontally and compartmentalized into blocks of geometric patterns to reflect the flat, bold forms within the urban landscape." The artist achieved a greater sense of artificiality using "harsh, inorganic colors absent from nature." In 1965, at the suggestion of his wife, the couple and their two sons moved to her native Melbourne, where the artist took a teaching position and where in 1966, at Gallery A, he secured his first solo exhibition. The critical response was largely unfavorable. Doolin fared much better in Sydney, a city at that time more receptive to the New York-inspired aesthetic of the period, with a well-received exhibition of his Artificial Landscapes at Central Street Gallery in 1967. Wanting to further his education in order to secure a better teaching position in the future, the Doolin family moved to Los Angeles shortly after his Sydney