Time Lines and Tide Lines

I had travelled to the Kimberley many times, driven the Gibb River Road through to the Bungle Bungle, made my way up to the Mitchell Plateau and to the tip of the Dampierland Peninsula. That landscape has been a great inspiration for my work, but over recent years I’ve heard more and more people singing the praises of the Kimberley Coast.

In August last year, I found out what all the noise was about when I took a one week cruise on the Kimberley Quest 11 from the Mitchell Plateau south to Broome. It was amazing, so amazing in fact, that I decided to do it again in May this year, with a cruise north from the Mitchell Plateau to Wyndham.

From the luxury of my floating studio, I witnessed an ever-changing ancient landscape reflected in the Indian Ocean. Initially overwhelmed by the grandeur, I wondered how I could represent this unique part of our world. One very evident aspect of viewing the ‘edge’ of the Kimberley, is the constant reminder of time. Over millions of years, layers of sediment have turned to stone, forming wonderful grey and orange parallel lines. With the movement of the Earth’s crust, those parallel lines have been violently bent and twisted, creating spectacular graphic images. The other constant is of course the waterline, paralleled by the high tide line, often 30 metres above.

So it is “Time Lines and Tide Lines” that have driven my response to the Kimberley Coast. This in turn has helped in my consideration of the overall abstract design in these works.

Brendon Darby (2009)