has been for sale for some time, as you have seen. The maintenance and ongoing development to keep our non-profit and idealistic platform for contemporary art running and safe from hackers etc. costs money that is no longer there. Because of small investments that are necessary now and the running costs, we will have to shut down with a heavy heart at the beginning of summer on June 21.
I used the same sketches and watercolour studies of a previous painting and reworked them to create a new approach, add feeling and meaning to this landscape. The underlying symbolism, that I created and used, is intended to show respect and regard for the traditional owners of this area of Western Queensland.
I digitally layered three studies to create this image, then printed it onto canvaspaper and over painted areas and washes in acrylic to resolve the landscape.
A better title for this painting should have been "Toxic Landscape", as the red area is red soil where nothing will now grow - the aftermath of Coal Seam Gas extraction and mining. What was once prime agricultural and grazing land was devastated. The miners did their "thing" and left without re-habilitating the landscape. Now nothing will grow and the grazier was left with the task and expense of cleaning-up.
The symbolism in the sky, a mark of respect for the Traditional owners of the land, signifies that the harmony of "man" and land is lost forever and has disappeared into the sky.
