During the 2021 Covid lockdowns, I travelled 8,000 km through Outback Queensland with my wife and fellow artist, Lyn Graham. The ‘Enormous Vastness’ series is inspired by the beauty of the landscapes we saw.
The series title is a line from the song 'Droving Woman' by Australian Aboriginal singer-songwriter Kev Carmody. He wrote: 'The enormous vastness of them inland plains gives a lonely contentment to which you can't put a name, it’s satisfied glow city folks seldom attain, they spend life on a right rigid rail'. This became the theme song for our journey.
Outback Queensland is hard but beautiful. Years go by without rain but 2021 was a wet year so there was abundant vegetation and birdlife.
Vehicle tracks were ubiquitous but people were scarce, even more than usual due to Covid. Sometimes we would drive all day and not see another car.
We took lots of photos and painted most days. These photos and watercolours became the basis for our oil paintings completed over 18 months in our Brisbane studio.
I kept thinking about the vehicle tracks, and ridiculous ads for 4WD vehicles crashing through creeks, over sand dunes and atop mountains. I started including a stylised 4WD and rifle in many of my paintings, a modern-day Ned Kelly roaming the landscape, as hard, dangerous and inscrutable as Sidney Nolan’s outlaw.
This artwork is called ‘Be What You Wanna Be’. It is set in the hard country north of Birdsville. Is the dog a kelpie accompanying the 4WD? Or a dingo stalking it?
The original painting was a finalist in the 2023 Harden Art Prize. This is a limited edition (25) giclee print of the original. Other sizes are available. Please contact me for pricing.