Paintings of the South West

As my studio overlooks the Blackwood River, I never tire of exploiting that solid strip of colour running through the very scratchy, scruffy, textured landscape.

To broaden my scope, I spent some time driving through the south-west. One observation was of more strips of solid colour, in the form of roads, running through this naturally abstracted landscape. I find this a very useful compositional tool, especially punctuated with very unsubtle road signs.

It was generally the practice of landscape painters, myself included, to avoid the influences of contemporary construction (Jeffrey Smart would disagree), but as most of our observations of the bush are through our windscreens, I wanted to document this.

I’ve recently returned from Europe and couldn’t wait to get back to the Aussie bush. No one would dispute that Europe has wonderful scenery, but you can’t imagine going for a walk in the European “bush”, the forest is just too neat to be called “bush”. In contrast, to describe the Australian landscape is to describe the typical Aussie, “non-conforming, confrontational, unpredictable and full of surprises”.

I hope I qualify.

Brendon (2000)