Broken Hill Art Exchange

Desert Equinox Water Art 2016

LOCATION: Kitchen Gallery, Heritage Courtyard at the rear of the Grand Guest house 313 Argent Street

TITLE: Cry of the thirsting Billabong (when a great river is reduced to a chain of ponds)

ART FORM: Sculpture

MEDIUM: Ceramic and wild grasses

SIZE/DIMENSIONS: 185cm x 75cm x 85cm

CATEGORY: Ebb

Making all the pieces for this installation was a year’s meditation. It drew on my love for the Darling River and its billabongs and my delight in all the life they support.
The meditation also drew on my grief over the depleted state of this river system. There are not enough good flows to keep the ecosystem healthy – far too often this great river is reduced to a chain of ponds. But it also drew on my hope that we can come to see the damage we are doing to our waterways – that we can change our priorities, befriend our rivers and see new life unfold.

BIOGRAPHY: Born in Sydney, my earliest training as an artist was at the National Art School. I continue to work as a painter and print – maker, but twenty-five years ago I was drawn also to the expressive possibilities of sculptural hand-building in clay. iving in Wilcannia, on the bank of the Darling River has nurtured my love of the outback landscape. This has deeply influenced all my artwork. I have regular exhibitions away but also exhibit in my own gallery in Wilcannia and sometimes in Broken Hill.