Works by 40 artists
All paintings and glass for sale 

ARTIST STATEMENT   Exhibition September 2021

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I have had the privilege of travelling extensively through this vast country over many years.  I have been excited to see firsthand the colours and shapes of this great big land, and I have recorded the images while travelling.  These drawings have been used to develop the paintings for this exhibition. 

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Three paintings, “Mallee Farm”, “Mallee Farm 1” and “Anakie Farm” portray man’s often futile efforts to live in the harsh Australian environment.  The paintings feature old, discarded farming implements, broken, scattered and rusted.  These tell of people’s efforts, early last century, to make a living on marginal land. 

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Returning World War 1 soldiers, including relatives of my wife’s family, were given allotments of land in the Mallee, and elsewhere… many of which now lie barren, or have been absorbed into other allotments.  These remnant, rusted pieces represent the heavy backbreaking toil used to tame the land, to help shape the earth.  Lack of water and drought ruined many hopes. 

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On the lower left of each painting trees groan in death spiral, in dark, dry and overworked topsoil.  The mirage-like backgrounds reveal the hopes of the farmer and the ultimate and despairing futility of effort.  The rock-like monolithic shapes of the farms in the paintings suggest the bleakness and stubbornness of the land to succumb to man’s dominion.