I have been painting trees in a paddock near my home. There is a particular outcrop of gums among some large granite boulders that has a particular atmosphere. Amongst the rocks and trees in the middle of a paddock a farmer has been buried by his family. They brought him to the place to bury him in the land that he had worked and loved.

It is cattle country with a large sprawling house with verandahs all around - an old Australian farmhouse. Generations of the family have lived there and become of the larger community. Three sons and a son-in-law in one generation died fighting in World War One. The father of those boy,s it was said in a local news item of the time, died of a broken heart.

The grave is a deep grey marble colour blending in with the grey of the granite. The only difference is in the smoothness of the stone. A person wouldn't know it was there unless they went into the centre. There are no other markers.

New exhibition

I haven't been on this blog for a long time. I have caught up with all the work and drama of selling and moving houses. That is in the final stages now though I haven't found a place to move into as yet. I can just see the light at the end of that particular tunnel.
I have been working recently towards a show at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery:
http://www.coffsharbour.nsw.gov.au/our-community/facilities-parks-and-places/regional-gallery/Pages/ExhibitionCalendar.aspx
It is an exhibition of four female landscape artists from my area. It is interesting to ponder whether gender makes a difference to concepts, responses and artistic expressions are related to landscape art. Race has been accepted as often an important aspect of the forms of expression of a persons response to their land "scape"
Logically it would seem to me that gender would be a factor just in so far as different groups notice different aspects of the same place. Our art, however, is also so much based on what we have seen and learned that this isn't clear cut.
Artists that have written about and acknowledged in the past have mainly been male. It is said that history is written by the victors.
This has changed but our art history education is still done by looking at the Michelangelos, the Titians, the Tiepolos etc of the world. I'd be interested in your views on this.
Here is one of the paintings that I have done for the Coffs Harbour exhibition.
It is based on the eucalypts in the paddocks around my home.