VORTEX COMING SOON

This is an image of Galaxial Landscape Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm. It will be in my forthcoming exhibition VORTEX: Seeking Stillness At Its Core which opens Wed 23 Feb 6-8pm. The exhibition dates are Tues 22 Feb - Sunday 6 March and it will be open daily 10 am -6 pm.

Regular readers, I am sorry I have not posted much lately, but the floods here in Brisbane have been disastrous. I am one of the lucky ones because my house did not get wet, but I did have to evacuate through nearly knee high water in my street. I had spent the previous 2 days preparing the house, by sandbagging doors, and taking everything that was downstairs to my second floor. I filled my car and my daughter's car with fuel and parked them up high, plus a whole lot of other preparations that you just do not think of until you have to.  

I am still without internet at home, so I am using my daughter's laptop remotely. Bigpond does not know when internet will be restored as various pivotal junctions were totally covered by water for a few days and repairs are currently being done around the clock. 

It is very distressing when I meet people who had houses that were totally inundated with water. Some, did not expect to be flooded and thus were not prepared. It is very sad too to think of the devastation in the Lockyer Valley where the wall of water caused loss of life and homes and everything else. I have relations who live in the Valley and they are physically ok, but they have lost massive production on their farms.

As regular readers now, I write and paint about water. In the aftermath of the flood I am thinking again about the implications of commodifying water. I have written about this before and I will write more about it when I have better internet access.

Cheers,

Kathryn

FLOOD

Hi There. I have been absent for awhile because we have had floods in Brisbane and I had to evacuate my house. Not before all my belongings from downstairs were taken upstairs, plus a whole lot of other precautions. The good news is that my house did not get wet, but another 20-30cm and it would have! I am one of the lucky ones, because many people have lost everything. In the Lockyer Valley many also lost their lives. The flooding all over QLD has been devastating.

I still do not have internet reconnected to my house, thus it is not so easy for me to keep up with my BLOG. Hopefully BIGPOND will have the outage in my area fixed soon.

All my paintings were taken upstairs. But, I have returned my easel and paints to my downstairs studio and will get back to painting this weekend. VORTEX: Seeking Stillness At Its Core, my forthcoming exhibition, is back on track! Check out my TWITPIC event page @ http://twitpic.com/e/v3x

I can't load any images easily, as I am working on my daughter's laptop remotely.


Cheers,
Kathryn 

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