Landscapes, Skies and Other Settings
I've come quite late to these kinds of subject matter: perhaps something about the immensity of the landscape here in Central Australia means that I find myself intimidated by the process of 'framing' it or representing it within the four edges of a painting. I'll occasionally kid myself by saying, "I'm just painting a tree, and some other things . . . not a landscape at all . . ." or I'll try to look at things from odd angles, or things that do not normally constitute a traditional landscape of foreground, background, skyline. I notice that there always seems to need to be some kind of human mark or presence in most of them: even the grasses are Buffell Grass, an introduced species that carries a fair bit of controversy in Central Australia. While the cloud studies might seem to be the exception, the point of view from which they're seen implies the presence of the 'manmade'.