Iron Country

Iron Country was painted in response to  the Pilbara region of Western Australia which the artist visited in 2019.

"On my first visit to the Pilbara I saw those hills for the second time. Under a carpet pierced with light, we dreamt of another time. Here in this place by Dales gorge I saw what Fred saw, these ancient rocks, the bones of our country, of an age we cannot fathom, here to see, here to rest by, here to wake to. Williams painted these hills, this landscape, and so to me it is familiar. It is in these rocks that I find a slow pace that I can depend on, that is unmoving in our eyes. I can look there and it is the same. To this land I am nothing, to me it is everything.

I lived in the landscape as I explored it’s crevices, its mounds and felt the earth shake beneath my feet. I need to know it, to be there, to find familiarity, I am no longer a foreigner in my own country. Time in the landscape is about absorbing a place, a mood, a weather. Sketches in gouache, and en plein air oils grasp at the immediacy of experience. These become the foundation of my studio practice."