My solo exhibition Inwards is on display at Broken Hill City Art Gallery until 29 October 2023.
404 - 408 Argent Street
Broken Hill NSW 2880
Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 4pm
Centred on the experience of entering Old Mutawintji Gorge, this exhibition is my initial response to two weeks camping in Mutawintji National Park on Barkindji and Malyangapa Country, as part of the 2022 Broken Hill City Art Gallery’s Open Cut Commission. As a first-time visitor I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to walk with and learn from Wiimpatja, Traditional Owners and Custodians, whose deep knowledge and connection to Country enriched my appreciation for the significance and power of this place.
I hope that my multi-panel watercolour monotype prints and carbon pencil drawings convey something of the physical and psychological experience of walking into the Gorge. Passing between weathered walls of rock rising up beside the dry creek-bed, I saw sky and earth converge and reflect in vital pools of water. As I moved inwards, towards a larger waterhole, I also approached an internal space and state of stillness, reflection and contemplation.
Beside the campfire I read James Fox’s The World According to Colour, which influenced my thinking in its consideration of red through themes including blood, life, humanity and its use in rock art across the world. Later, from the distance of my Canberra studio on Ngunnawal Country, I leant into the intuitive, emotive and symbolic dimensions of colour. A memory of dusty pink creek sand became a diluted wash across the sky, while the same pigments in higher concentration produced primal reddish browns that reminded me of the interaction of iron and oxygen both in the earth and in our bodies.