Paintings by Denise Campbell

Exhibition - "On Reflection"

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Still Waters 120x100 cm                                                             Slow Waters 112x98 cm                                                    Quiet Reflection 120x100 cm

  Between the Gums 150x100 cm                  Rainforest Pool 100x120 cm            Transformation 100x100 cm                      Channelling 120x100 cm

       To the Inland Sea 120x70 cm                                        Dry River Gorge 120x100 cm                                       Autumn Colours 120x70 cm

                              Land Marks 100x120 cm                   Under the Southern Sun 150x100 cm                     Slow Motion 100x120 cm

Tropical Waters 1 50x50cm Tropical Waters 2 50x50cm   Rugged Beauty 60x50cm                 Cascade 60x50cm                 Sandstone Wall 60x50cm

   Spinifex series 1 60x50cm                        Spinifex series 2 60x50cm                         Spinifex series 3 60x50cm                       Spinifex series 4 60x50cm

Artist's statement

ON REFLECTION

If we go there

If we go there and listen

We will hear the voice of the eternal

The eternal says that we are at the beginning of time

David Ireland - A Woman of the Future (Penguin, 1980)

When reflecting on my travels―in particular on the aerial flights I’ve taken throughout Outback Australia―I have always been drawn to landscapes of arid, red dust. However, a recent field trip to Kakadu and the Far North has prompted me to reflect upon both the seasonal and unusual changes in the nature and beauty of our landscape. The transformation comes courtesy of torrents of water flowing over the land, when rivers run, waterholes and billabongs fill and, following rain, red sands mirror a huge blue sky.

It seems our Outback land is either desert or deluge. The landscape can burn one moment and, seemingly in the next, weep to overflowing.

The landscapes in this exhibition are an expression of my reflections and my response to the transformation of landscape. I see the land as a sanctuary with special places for meditation—even the meandering pace at which the water flows offers itself for contemplation. In another time and place, the land appears confronting and mysterious.

The effect nature can have on us is so well expressed by poet James McAuley: ‘the wattle scatters pollen on the doubting heart’. Of course, the voices of the landscape speak differently to each of us but, for me, they deliver a peace that is powerful, precious and inspiring. Listening can lift the spirits and refresh the soul.

Denise Campbell, 2010