Exhibitions

The Barmah Forest – NSW/VIC Border

The work has been produced as the result of a journey taken in June 2008 to the Barmah State Forest, which lies between the border of NSW and Victoria. This region is home to the largest River Red Gum population in the world.
I have created a visual documentation of the region, its landscape, its trees, the birds and flora, as an over view of the region. The beauty and energy is highlighted in this commentary but also the decline of the region underlies the image through the accompanying text. I feel I am making a visual record much like the first settlers. Unlike the first settlers I am not seeking to entise a foreign audience to embrace this foreign land, instead I am seeking to create an awareness about a region that we could loose if not protected. I hope this visual journey takes you to a part of the Murray Darling River Basin that you may not have experienced before.
Inspiration has come from science, which is seen in the production of prints and the written documentation of each location. Visually the grandeur of the Red River Gums, glowing white in the soft grey green woodland, some towering as high as 5m have inspired my exploration of lush warm colours and bulky bold form of twisting and arching trees. While the bird life has provided more detailed consideration of natures form and colour, although abundant in the region some where hard to find. The Murray River itself was a constant source of wonder as I began and ended each day at its side watching the colour change from a glowing pink and yellow to a soft variety of grey, as it flowed constantly and freely between the two states.

It is my hope that these images do not simply become museum pieces of what once was.

This is part of an ongoing exploration of the six iconic locations within the Murray Darling Basin. I began with the Coorong in 2006.

R.Carroll November 2008

The Barmah Road Trip July 2008

Stopped into Denelequin and spoke to one of the authorities at the water board. A privately run company. Happy to advise, there are now only 100 dairy farms operating in the area now, rather than 300. They still receive water payment on licenses from properties even though they are not getting any water due to the drought.
Water is pumped up from the Murray to the Lachlan River every day and they pump up in four hours what Melbourne or Sydney use in a day (I recently found out, it equates to, per person 220L a day). If they were to wait for this water to naturally flow along the murray it would take 21 days.
Rice is not grown in the region when the drought is so bad. And it has been for about 7 years. But they don’t think its climate its just a cycle.

They also said that they are saving the Red Gum populations by keeping the floods out of the Barmah Forest, they would otherwise drown.

Mistletoe is the bird from the Uk which kills the tree from its droppings, causing leaves to droop and change colour in clusters on the tree eventually destroying the whole tree. The Birds are too hard to catch, they are too small.

Saturday
We got a locals perspective a logger...
Dave Swan..(Swanny)
He took us on a 4 hour tour of the Barmah Forest, he knew it like the back of his hand or as the case may be the back of a tree. Mind you a few did look the same, but we made it out as the last light faded and the roos started jumping into site.
The forest is selectively logged, as the trees sprout up like weeds and they overcrowd each other. So a few are culled and the others are left to flourish.

Floods are required that’s how the trees thrive, but not for too long and not too late in the season. They did one year late October it was too late spring was nearly over and the water got too warm around the base of the tree.
The water is stored up and used throughout the year.
The red gums get their name from the colour of the wood inside the tree trunks.

Sunday
The next day we had a tour on the river itself with Kingfisher tours. The girl was about my age and she was university trained and at this job for 8 years now. There was no passion, just the facts. Not like Swanny, she wouldn’t stay in the area after work just to absorb the scenery, even though relatives own a van in the caravan park. While Swanny brings the swag just incase he is inspired to camp the night.

We found out about the numbers on the side of the river, how they counted the norticle miles up from the mouth. We saw a couple of Kingfishers Blue, darting about, they are only small.

The river is this countries life force, kill the river and you kill the country.

Painting is but a flat form for a voice, so as each artwork travels into many homes and lives, like a book with a message.

The Paroo Wetlands – May 2010

The wetlands! What a journey! We drove more than ten hours and travelled via Dubbo. But it was worth every mile. The Wilcannia stop was brief but memorable. I stood outside the car to view and take photos of the Darling River my first glance at its greatness.

A young Aboriginal couple walked in front of the car holding hands, I did a double take I was sure it was the main characters from the film, Samson and Delilah. Samson nodded and they both kept walking.

Just as I started to film the perfect song came on ABC radio, I wanted to cry at the serendipity of the moment...“If a tree falls in a forest, does anybody here? If a tree falls in a forest will anybody care?”
I was traversing the Wetlands to see if anyone cared about a dying river system; Australia’s largest.
We then drove through the town of Willcannia which was all bordered by bars on windows and signs saying read more books on most walls. It was a little ominous to say the least. I understood now why most of Sydney advised not to stop.

We hit the open road again and the sun was setting, the trees looked paper white and thin. Our final destination was White Cliffs, which has Australia’s first Opal mine. My mission was to get a flight above the Paroo Wetlands. I had met a helicopter pilot in Sydney but he was not going to arrive at the same time, but I did not want to give up on the idea of seeing the wetlands from such a great perspective.
As fate would have it, I walked into a pub, where I met Bill, the owner. We soon began chatting about how I was here to see the wetlands. Bill instantly replied…do you want to fly over them? Did I have flight over wetlands needed written on my forehead? I was so excited.

Day one: The Wetlands
The next day we drove to the wetlands along a fairly bumpy dirt road. The earth is an amazing rich red colour like burnt umber and red ochre intertwined.
As soon as we got to the wetlands we met only one other person that day…a journalist from Melbourne who had also driven to see the Wetlands. We talked for a while about green news and the changes in the river. Lindsay was here to explore the new expanse of water. We were then left with the land for the remainder of the day. As the sun beamed

down I could feel the heat on my back. I sat by this new lake and considered the submerged trees. How was I going to paint this?

Mono prints were also on the day’s agenda, small black and white images of the trees submerged, this started to feed some lateral ideas into the possible energy I was feeling in the location. I love to personify nature and although the trees were stagnant, it was as if I could hear them breathing loudly.

Later that afternoon as the sun was setting we headed back onto the bumpy dirt road. I wasn’t driving thankfully and we were only doing 40km an hour or less. This slow pace was fortunate, as we were about to encounter Australia’s biggest bird at close range, an emu which must have been only 10 cm away from the car bonnet. All I saw was this dash of black we stopped the car out of shock more than anything. It looked like a female running with skirt hitched high, the shock made us laugh.

Further down the road we saw a huge eagle land on a bare tree branch, backed by the warm glow of the setting sun. This image works best as a photo I would never attempt to paint it.
That night back at the White Cliff Hotel I met a group of bird watches who were in town to see the wetland birds. I made a list of all the birds they told me I could see. They were delighted with the region it was suddenly flourishing for the first time in 7 years.

Day 2: the flight
We were up early and Bill was as eager as we were to hit the sky. Once the windows were clean we helped push the little four seated plane onto the runway. Camera poised, this was everything I had hoped for. The plane circled over white cliffs first. I could see the extent of the opal mine, small white lumps dominating the red earth. It looked like the surface of the moon only red and white rather than white on white. Two water pools exist just at the town’s edge, collecting rainwater. Although the wetlands had waited 7 years to drink the local town had plenty, they had never run out.

The area was vast as we circled from above. A much greater expanse than I ever imagined. It was truly beautiful. I knew straight away I would attempt to paint my first aerial views.
The journey ended and we were soon on the road again only to stop on the road out as Pink Cockatoos lead us to the Lapperwood tree. A tree that looked so soft it seemed to peel with a soft layering of paper. I felt honored to see these unique trees.

HATTAH

This new exhibition is a continuation of a journey which began at the Coorong in 2006. I visit a new location in the Murray Darling River Basin each year to encounter its beauty and its presence at the water’s edge.
Often meeting local scientists, indigenous, journalists and even MP’s at the River side, I have delighted in the stories and the experiences of others which, in turn, inspired the large scale landscapes painted for this show.
This new series titled “HATTAH – the Murray River in Flood” is a journey through the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, Victoria. It celebrates the beauty of the newly flooded wetland, a first in 15 years.

The river has a life of its own… one that I have sought in paint. The colours of sunrise and sunset inspire this series, along with the reflections within the water, water that is abundant for the first time in 15 years.
For this series I have taken inspiration from the colours of the masters: Monet and Vermeer. They created a colour base for each painting that glowed, and their tonal awareness and colour awareness went beyond simply red or blue: it was a cool red or a warm blue. I layered each colour which informed the order of colour, allowing it to glow.

The glow within the Australian landscape has always attracted and influenced my vision as an artist. The light in the land is unique in its crisp clarity, and yet simultaneously its softness in early morning light. I wander this land curious to note the “European eye” that has been here before me; Von Gerard and others often missed the dry intensity of light within the landscape, often rendering a lush European finish.
This land is far from lush but its Mallee terrain often suggests another type of panorama. Once you are within its base and looking up from below as I often do, the land takes on a whole new glow.

The size of the canvas is also important, the larger the better in order to engulf the viewer in an experience of the land. To immerse the viewer, I add an energy through brush marks that is often so engaging it will direct your view through the canvas which helps the viewer to journey through the land.

In another corner of this exhibition delicate limited edition prints of birds and flora from the region reside. Reminiscent of scientific illustration in format but also inspired by the lyrical prints of John Olsen, these prints are a corner of meditation and life.
Inspiration for this series is also taken from scientific illustration, hence the labels about each bird. As an artist I am interested in the overlapping of science and art, as a communication tool, the way the two can inform through both the visual and the written word. Often the visual is what remains: the first images of Australia are drawings made by scientists and botanists. It is also a reminder of how science finds so many solutions to the problems that now face our natural world.
It is also a celebration of the knowledge we have gained about the natural world thanks to our scientists.

This show seeks to entice the viewer to explore our wide brown land: if not in person, then why not here, take a quiet moment to reflect on the outback, the land that feeds us, it is a nice reminder of how we breathe.

I wish to bring this experience of the bush to the city in the hope that the plight of this region is seen as well as heard. “Although it is a bush problem, it is here in the city that solutions will be accomplished.” (Phil the sustainable farmer from Hattah NP)

This series is also inspired by Monet and his notion of repetition, a process he developed in order to see a subject and know a subject. He painted the same location over and over, different lights at different times of day.
I often stood at the water’s edge at sunrise and then again at sunset to see how it changed. The soft glow of morning, often in a slight haze, contrasts with the intense glow of the setting sun.

Monet also took size into consideration; or many of his later images he built rooms just to house the paintings that then wrapped around the room.
This immersed the viewer in an experience of nature.
Monet made an icon of his water lily garden; I have taken the iconic locations of the Murray in the hope that we all see it as our garden.