Passing impressions during a drive through the rural countryside of the Southern Highlands NSW.
The glyphs of nature and the remnants of her subjugation combine in this frieze – the numina are both natural and man-caused. The colour green is the colour of grace and acceptance – it is the soothing matrix from which all things are born. The life force of nature is expressed in crystalline emerald green. An ocean contained in a dewdrop. The road and the river describe opposite curves, the cascade and the fallen butterfly are the end-signals of this trend. At the left the Koel calls. I love the haunted urgency of the Koel’s cry, connected somehow to stormclouds and rain. There is the hint of a metaphor of annexation as the male with the demon eye peeps out of the berry bush ready to fly home (the Koel is a migratory cuckoo from Borneo that lays its eggs in the Wattle Birds nest). Lime and emerald green suit well the allegorical ellipsis – perilous abundance, the story of water. To flatten out the narrative it was necessary to infuse the sky in this colour – only at each extremity the power of a dark cobalt sky.