It’s no secret that Tasmania has some of Australia’s tallest old growth forests and the Eucalyptus regnans is the world’s tallest flowering tree, but it’s not the only one which deserves to be honoured. There are other giants among the eucalypts that are worthy of greater recognition, and the White Gum (Eucalyptus viminalis) is one of them.
Presiding over the Evercreech Forest Reserve are gigantic white gums known as the White Knights. For centuries they have watched, like silent sentinels, the changing landscape of Tasmania’s Northeast. The time is now for these majestic trees to take their rightful place in the annals of Tasmania’s rich botanical heritage, for nowhere else in the world does one encounter white colossuses such as these.
Tasmania has the cleanest air in the world and the White Knights contribute to this. In my artwork I decided to connect both the beauty and stature of the magnificent White Knights forest and remind viewers about the power of the trees which give us oxygen, fresh, clean air and are known by many as the lungs of the Earth. In the artwork there are representations of two lungs as both cloud and foliage of the central tree.