UNDERGROUND CURRENCY

Underground Currency Oil on linen 80 x 100 cm 2010

I have really had fun painting this new work 'Underground Currency'. Yes, it is a painting of Australia! But, it is Australia with one of her most wondrous life sustaining natural gifts exposed. This gift is the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) which extends across 22% of the continent. It is not one big underground lake, but rather a system of aquifers, some very deep and others closer to the surface. 

GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN and MINING

There are risks to the Great Artesian Basin due to a burgeoning mining industry, especially coal seam gas [CSG] mining. Regular readers will know how concerned I am about the potential for degradation to water and soils. 

In fact, the federal Government's own National Water Commission's recent position paper on CSG and Water clearly calls for caution.

http://www.nwc.gov.au/www/html/2959-coal-seam-gas.asp?intSiteID=1

FARM GIRL

I grew up on a grain farm outside Dalby, on the Darling Downs, Queensland. My Dad had a bore, which provided us with water in times of drought. However, whilst it kept plants alive and allowed us to wash clothes and ourselves during dry times, it was a too salty for ongoing human or animal consumption. Yet, 2-3 km away our neighbour's bore provided water that was drinkable for human beings and animals. The worry is that mining and CSG fracking techniques [pushing chemicals, water and sand into coal seams to release gas ie: creating mini-like earthquakes] could cause natural occurring barriers in aquifer systems to break down and allow for cross contamination, not only of different water qualities, but also chemicals [natural and introduced]. Many farmers rely on underground water to sustain livestock and grow our food.

UNDERGROUND CURRENCY  Oil on linen 80 x 100 cm

So, to the painting! This work is closely related to two earlier works on paper 'Murray Darling Currency' and 'GAB: Great Artesian Basin'. Its title, with the word currency, plays with ideas of water flowing, financial terms, and contemporaneousness...the flow/current of water, money and time! But, it also refers to political currency; the machinations of political agendas molded and stroked by power, business, lobbyists and needs, desires and wants. Look closely and you will see that I have painted the area of the GAB with small blue $ signs. 

The word underground in the title can be read as literally referring to underground aquifer water supplies, but it also refers to a subtext of political decision making that impacts on the environment and thus...us. In a broader context it also refers to the kind of secrets and subterfuge which propelled the world towards the Global Financial Crisis [GFC]...indeed is it really over? Even the Wikileaks revelations exposes the 'underground'; the secrets that form a hidden dimension, populated by shadows, that impact life.  

The picture below is a detail of 'Underground Currency'. You can see more clearly the small blue $ signs I have used  to depict the Great Artesian Basin...currency!!! From a distance these $ are not discernible, but they are as the viewer moves closer to the painting. Regular readers will know that I like to entice the viewer to move back and forth posing questions like, 'Have you noticed?' But, also alluding to the back and forth movements, from far to close perspective, that are necessary as we live locally in an increasingly globalised world.  The use of a symbol of wealth, to depict a natural substance, questions how we 'value' nature's gifts.

Tree-of-Life

But there is hope! My much loved transcultural/religious tree-of-life motif creates the sea surrounding Australia as well as the continent. The tree 'speaks' of pulsing life systems. Its vascular like essence linking everything seen and unseen. Its beauty deliberately edging out ugliness to provide hope for a future ongoing. 

 

                                                         Detail Underground Currency

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com