The Outback Train

This painting comes from my many trips on the old trains out west, and the dilapidated and unloved stations and assorted buildings left on the the lonely platforms.
Henry Lawson wrote his memory to the back "O" Bourke in 1894 and I've used some excerpts from it.

"Draw a wire fence and a few ragged gums, and add some scattered sheep running away from the train. Then you’ll have the bush all along the New South Wales Western line from Bathurst on.

The railway towns consist of a public house and a general store, with a square tank and a schoolhouse on piles in the nearer distance. The tank stands at the end of the school and is not many times smaller than the building itself. It is safe to call the pub ‘The Railway Hotel,’ and the store ‘The Railway Stores,’ with an ‘s.’ The Railway Stores seem to exist only in the shadow of the pub, and it is impossible to conceive either as being independent of the other. There is sometimes a small, oblong weatherboard building — unpainted, and generally leaning in one of the eight possible directions, and perhaps with a twist in another — which, from its half-obliterated sign, seems to have started as a rival to the Railway Stores; but the shutters are up and the place empty.

The only town I saw that differed much from the above consisted of a box-bark humpy with a clay chimney, and a woman standing at the door throwing out the wash-up water.

By way of variety, the artist might make a watercolour-sketch of a fettler’s tent on the line, with a billy hanging over the fire in front, and three fettlers standing round filling their pipes.

We crossed the Macquarie — a narrow, muddy gutter with a dog swimming across, and three goats interested.

Along about Byrock we saw the first shearers. They dress like the unemployed, but differ from that body in their looks of independence. They sat on trucks and wool-bales and the fence, watching the train, and hailed Bill, and Jim, and Tom, and asked how those individuals were getting on.

Somebody said to me, ‘Yer wanter go out back, young man, if yer wanter see the country. Yer wanter get away from the line.’ I don’t wanter; I’ve been there.

At 5.30 we saw a long line of camels moving out across the sunset and somebody said, ‘Here’s Bourke.’

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“I do not paint the landscape. The sensation and experience of applying the inks, become the landscape.”
After many years of painting and drawing, I felt I could not express an emotional response to my vision using conventional methods and began experimenting with spirit based inks. Acid free, fast drying and translucent, they hum with a creative energy of their own. They are magical. I love colour, its subtlety, boldness, restfulness and cheekiness. These inks swirl and move of their own accord, but they need manipulation and control to reign in their playfulness and allow me to echo the soul and aura of the subject. Lately I have introduced a textured approach with acrylic paints for the foreground in my works, but have continued using the lovely swirly inky skies. My paintings evolve from my own reactions to the mood and nature of what I am endeavouring to convey. They capture spirit, movement and translate those impressions in a semi-abstract, expressionistic manner. Growing up in Brewarrina, my art has been influenced by many childhood memories of the harsh Australian Outback as well as my overseas travels. Sitting beside a campfire, mesmerised by violet heavens above; striding across purple heath covered English Moors;
blinded by the white starkness of the Antarctica or simply reading a book about Apothecary in my chair - all awaken a desire to translate those experiences into a tangible reflection of my memories. A song or piece of poetry can also inspire a painting, helping me represent the mood and nature of the subject.My studio has been hand hewn from the solid rock face on which my house is built. I actually descend though a trapdoor in the lounge room floor! I'm most creative in the early hours, working on 2-3 pieces at a time, listening to a 1950s station on my old radio. These paintings of mine, are a reflection of that endless quest to record the blessings of nature swirled around with a dram of whimsical romanticism.