“…And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought
And rolls through all things-
While others see and feel precisely nothing at all. “
My work is concerned with landscapes that are undergoing regeneration through both natural processes and the positive intervention of communities who care for them.
Queenstown Tasmania was considered to be one of the world’s richest mining towns during the late nineteenth century. Copper mining and mass logging during the early 1900’s forged a strangely bare, other-worldly landscape here. Most profound is the inherent recovery that can be seen in the resplendence of plant and tree species that have remerged since the cessation of industry.
This painting celebrates regeneration, documenting the unique appearances of Queenstown as the process unfolds. Dramatic topographical variations evoke a sense of awe as one travels in and through the town. Embedded in the memory of the land lay great hope for renewal despite the devastation wrought by heavy industry. She is resilient and unbound by time.
Charles Witham captures the unrelenting landscape of Queenstown and the way it permeates those who live within it in this excerpt from ‘Western Tasmania- A Land of Riches and Beauty’ 1923. His words are laser cut into a panel of weathering steel perched atop a roadside lookout forming a poignant focal point as one encounters the town from the west.
What Witham has conveyed of his response to this landscape with words, I have sought to communicate with paint. As such, my work may be considered to be as concerned with the material possibilities of paint as with interpreting the natural world. Paint continues to be able to reveal more about a subject than any camera, the material itself a bounteous conduit for representation and meaning.
