top of page
Exhibition - "On Reflection"

A display of acrylic painting on canvas and oil stick on French handmade paper.

 

Acrylic painting on canvas

 

Artist's statement

 

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

 

Oil stick on French handmade paper

 

bottom of page