creative-i 6: The Art & Nature Issue
Words, voices and images: Connecting to cultures around the world
"For me looking down on this land, snug in the cabin of the aircraft, there is a sense of disconnection to place. We pass by unknowing of what is really down there, all a kind of metaphor for modern life". Peter Hylands
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John Wolseley describes how nature works as he moves from dry land to wetland. We look back at Australian art history as Fred Williams visits Werribee Gorge to complete his series of landscape paintings there and Dr Hugh Wirth talks about how cultures around the world deal with animal welfare issues.
We also visit Africa and its spectacular Rift Valley as we make a dash to beat the rains. We encourage each of you to look after the nature of our world.
Pleasures and dangers in a dry land
As I fly across Australia as I have done so often over the last 50 or so years since I first visited the continent I like the idea of looking down on the Australian landscape and imagining John Wolseley down there somewhere.
His trusty 4 wheel drive loaded high with the essentials of the artist, the Arches paper, the water colour paints and the occasional good bottle of red supplied by son Will.
For me looking down on this land, snug in the cabin of the aircraft, there is a sense of disconnection to place. We pass by unknowing of what is really down there, all a kind of metaphor for modern life. So who cares? Why do we have to worry? Piece by piece and mile by mile, the vast array of plants and animals that we speed over are the building blocks of our world. They provide the mechanisms that sustain us. This is the nature of Australia, it is the nature of our planet Earth.
For John, down in and within that landscape, there is a very different experience.
The noise and colour of the Australian bush, a pandemonium of Parrots overhead cry out to the landscape below, the mournful call of the Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides) mingles with the powerful smell of Eucalypts in the summer heat. A lizard darts across the sand and into a delicate mat of small plants. The land shimmers.
The campsite established and the joy of visiting or working with John on location lives long in a memory. This is serious business, painting in the landscape, the broad brush and the intricate detail. All immersed in place and nature, all now as one with the Australian landscape.
