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

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 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. Here are a couple of websites with more details about the Great Artesian Basin. http://www.gabcc.org.au/index.aspx   http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/water/gab/

GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN and MINING

The Great Artesian Basin is under threat from the 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. Here's a link to a recent post and painting $oils Ain't $oils...Anymore! http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/12/oils-aint-oilsany-more.html

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, it was a bit too salty for ongoing human consumption. Yet, 2-3 km away our neighbour's bore provided water that was drinkable. The worry is that CSG fracking techniques [pushing chemicals, water and sand into coal seams to release gas ie: creating mini-like earthquakes] will cause natural ocurring faults 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.

SALT

SCG mining also produces water 'byproduct' as the gas and water flow to the surface in pipes. This water, often saline, is stored in holding evaporation ponds to allow the salt to be collected. One of the major concerns, with the current floods covering over 1,000,000 square km of Queensland, is that salt from these ponds has spread across farmland. Salination of soils means aridness, infertility...forever. Salt's symbolic association with eternity does not bode well.

As mining activity sucks water from our systems, it is important to note that the industry is not subject to the restrictions farmers must adhere to under water resources legislation. If you read the  Federal Government's National Water Commission Position Paper you will clearly understand the concerns of people about the potential depletion of  the Great Artesian Basin. http://www.nwc.gov.au/www/html/2959-coal-seam-gas.asp?intSiteID=1

AERIAL IMAGE
Here is an aerial image of a CSG field near Chinchilla, west of Dalby.

With over 40,000 gas wells planned for the Darling Downs, Bowen and Surat Basins, this is what vast areas of our landscape will look like.

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' http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/11/murray-darling-currency.html and 'GAB: Great Artesian Basin' http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/08/airspace-and-phantoms.html  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 moulded and stroked by power, business, lobbyists and needs, desires and wants.

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 impacts on life.  Given the propensity for secrets, agendas and opportunistic activity to be ultimately exposed, it is true that history is indeed the last and most critical judge.

Here's a link to a post I wrote in Feb 2008 about the GFC  http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2008/11/after-implosion.html

And another on RISK

http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/09/risk.html

The picture below is a detail of 'Underground Currency'. You can see 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 movement, from far to close perspective, that is 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.

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