61.6 Walking the Big Desert. Ed. 1 of 20

I moved to Murrayville (population +300) in the Mallee area of Victoria in 1981 to take up the Art teacher position there and stayed for 15 years. When people ask my wife and I what it was like we often reply that it was a 15 year long BBQ set in the beautiful area of the Big Desert. The Murrayville to Nihl track is a sandy, hilly trail that ran north – south and was big, silent, sand dune country. I walked and drew parts of it many times but the best walk was with my friend and brother in law, John O’Meara, around 1991.

We choose a summer full moon, gave ourselves the title, The League of Mallee Desert Walkers, and arranged to get dropped off at the southern end of the track. We set water bottles along the way and pitched a tent at Big Billy. We walked all day and partly thru the full moon of night until we reached Big Billy. We celebrated our first day of walking with gin and tonics and slept well.

We walked that second day and reached our pick up point at The Big Cutting late that afternoon. We waited a while when a white 4WD pulled up and asked what we were doing out there in the desert country and would we like a lift in to Murrayville, which we accepted.

The “Art” component for me was not so much drawing the landscape, it was the actual walk. A conceptual artwork, if you like, in the vein of the work of the artist, Richard Long. Many friends and relatives have bought, or were given, a Big Desert drawing with many of these friends and relatives now far flung from that Mallee area. I’m asked at times if I have any more to sell but haven’t so I thought that offering a few of the artworks as prints might be a good idea. It seems that many people are still very fond of that big, silent, sand dune country.

The image is 90 x52 with a border all round measuring 100 X 63.

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Born in Hampshire, England, Colin arrived in Australia in 1971 and found work making chandeliers and later delivering rental televisions. Studying for matriculation over two years at night school he enrolled in Art College at the Preston Institute of Technology in 1975. A number of leading artists taught at PIT and Colin had the opportunity to work in audio with David Tolley, conceptualism with Dom De Clario, with the hard edge painting of Dale Hickey and the large, expressionistic work of Peter Booth, all of who have subtly influenced his own art. Majoring in Sound and Painting Colin left to drive taxis and to teach Art. Failing to heed the advice of a gallery director who told him to consider concentrating on one genre and sticking to it Colin continues to produce figurative paintings and drawings; large, ambient, colourwork and the occasional sculpture, installation and audio work.
About my artwork.
My work is generated from things around me that fit a certain feeling. At times I go looking and find them in places, or in objects and people. Other times I find them in a less active fashion, in sounds or perhaps in dreams or blends of colours. I find making artwork irresistible and enjoy the actual cognition of looking, listening and producing the work. Art is a rich tool, a mechanism that I can use to explore and respond to this curious and strange world where things appear both solidly real and also evasive and elusive.