That’s why he’s decided to call his latest collection of works, Retroactive – as it offers a different perspective on revisionism.

James said that the seeds of the upcoming exhibition were sewn when a long-forgotten series of paintings were rediscovered after a decade.

“First it was instigated by a caretaker who found some of my work in the shed behind other things and liked it,” he said. “I saw immediately, like artists do, how to finish it and it also inspired more work in the same genre.

“Once that happened, I went back and looked at my earlier work in storage and then came the concept of not retrospective but retro-active.”

James added  the exhibition, which will feature  paintings, etchings, monotypes and sculpture, deftly balances the past with how far the artist has come in the ensuring years.

“I have in this exhibition works, the majority of which were done ten or sometimes 20 years ago, along with what they gifted me or inspired me to do upon seeing them again to refresh the ideas I had,” he said.

“Creativity is a circular process. The ideas you begin with recur always and they constantly develop.”

James who trained at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) in the 1970s became a printmaker’s apprentice after graduating and dove headlong into the fecund art world of 1970s Sydney.

During his apprenticeship James met and collaborated with the likes of Brett Whiteley, David and Arthrur Boyd and Charles Blackman.

“I was their servant, but I didn’t mind,” he said. “I was learning the philosophy and the attitudes to have to be someone with originality.”

James added that his NIDA training (where he studied acting and dance, also stood him in good stead when making the leap to the easel.

“It’s really to do with a technique of how you can improvise under certain conditions,” he said.

James Whitington’s Retroactive exhibition will be on display at Cessnock Regional Art Gallery from Wednesday 26 September to Sunday 28 October. There will be an official opening at the gallery on Saturday 29 September, from 5pm-8pm with an opening address by Richard Stern.