PROMPT-SCAPE

 Prompt-Scape Gouache on paper 28 x 32cm 2025

This image of Prompt-Scape (above) is a photographic documentation of a real painting, not an AI generated image erroneously called a 'painting.' Prompt-Scape visually reveals the plunder that a prompt to generate an image or text triggers. I use the word trigger deliberately! Is a prompt like a trigger, setting into motion algorithmic processes that target data to detect the statistical correlations most likely to produce what has been prompted/triggered?

I'll let you all have some fun thinking about this painting. I don't think I need to write much more about it! I will, however, leave two provocations.

1. Can the concept of surrender help us think about life in the age of AI? My article Surrendering to 'Too Powerful' technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drone' in Media, War, and Conflict journal.

2. In September I gave a seminar War in Our Hyperconnected World: Exposing the Invisible Battlespace, for colleagues in the School of Communication and Arts, and the University of Queensland, Australia. Below is one of my slides from the talk. Like Prompt-Scape it channels ideas of targeting in the Earth-to-satellite environment. The painting in the slide is Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction (2022). 

Here's a quote about Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction from my PhD thesis Drones, Signals, and the Techno-Colonisation of Landscape (2023). 

"The painted zeros and ones disembody the organic and strip the non-organic by visually reducing them to the same instructional code. This visual reduction to equivalence exposes insidious relationships, questions forces of techno-homogenisation, and raises issues of aesthetic homogenisation in an age of increasing generative AI."

Cheers,

Kathryn

 

TWELVE YEARS BLOGGING - TWELVE PAINTINGS

Cosmic Dreaming - Simulation Oil on linen 31 x 56 cm 2018

August 2018 marks twelve years since I started my BLOG. I have posted consistently, about once a week for twelve years. For regular readers I send you many thanks for taking an interest in my work.

To celebrate twelve years, I am uploading one painting for each year from 2006. I am not going to write more than these few sentences. I will let the paintings do the 'talking'. 

Cheers, Kathryn

Launching the New Horizon oil on canvas 60 x 92 cm 2017

Life and the Drone Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2016

Privileged Landscape oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2015

New World Habitability - Vacation Anyone? Oil on linen 70 x 120 cm 2014

Multiple Landscapes Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2013

Cosmic Ouroboros Oil on  linen 120 x 150 cm 2012

Meeting Place of the Mind Oil on linen 100 x 70 cm 2011

Phantom Water Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2010

Halo Oil on linen 81 x 182 cm 2009

Lifeblood Oil on linen 90 x 180 cm 2008

Braid oil on  board 89 x 59 cm 2007

Self portrait

Totally Out There Oil on linen 180 x 120 cm 2006

RETURNING TO THE COUNTRY - "COSMOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES" - EXHIBITION IN MILES

Australian Landscape Cutout Oil on linen 50 x 70 cm 2015

My exhibition Cosmological Landscapes opened two night ago at Dogwood Crossing, Miles, Western Queensland, Australia. My exhibition hangs in the John Mullins Memorial Art Gallery. It is a great gallery space, kitted out to meet regional gallery standards eg: climate control, lighting, hanging systems, loading bays etc etc. Plus, the professional staff are wonderful to work with. And, the Miles community provides a team of well trained volunteers.

This is my first show for nearly three years. The reason for this is that I became a recluse while I was studying and researching for my Master of Philosophy, University of Queensland. My proposal for Cosmological Landscapes was accepted two and half years ago - and - now it is hanging. 

I relished the opportunity to exhibit paintings completed over the last 3-4 years, including some of my very recent paintings that depict airborne weaponised drones, or indications of their presence. Considering that my interest, and subsequent academic research into militarised technology, was spurred by my creative practice, Cosmological Landscapes provides insight into my journey - from a broad interest in existential risk posed by emerging technologies to a specific focus on contemporary militarised technology. This journey is also a 'flight' through the cosmos, where the vastness of my childhood landscape enticed me to wonder about life and the universe. 

The title Cosmological Landscapes invites the viewer to see 'landscape' as something that traverses universal time and scale - from the quantum to the vast. As this was the first opportunity for me to exhibit some of my dronescape paintings, it was interesting to see how my ideas of 'droned landscape' worked with my earlier paintings. In contextualising the dronescapes as landscapes, the exhibition reveals how landscape is mediated by persistent technological surveillance and the enabling invisible signals that ricochet around the world from node to node - satellites, drones, devices, cars, mobile phones and so on. In my artist's talk I suggested that this insidious mediation affects how we might operate and live in the landscape/environment. In Australian regional and rural centres, for example, satellites are used to monitor/record various aspects of agricultural production and activity - planting, clearing, stock movements, fire break construction and maintenance etc. As this kind of monitoring and surveillance becomes more ubiquitous, human behaviour is likely to change. Extreme examples of places where lives are changed by persistent vertical surveillance are Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and others. 

 Exhibition image Cosmological Landscapes

 The Australia corner of Cosmological Landscapes

I am so so happy to have an opportunity to exhibit a selection of my Australia paintings. Underground Currency [far left] depicts the continent of Australia, formed by a cascading tree-of-life. The Great Artesian Basin in painted with small blue $ signs. I 'play' with the term currency in multiple ways! This painting was received very well at the opening - country people 'get' the issues surrounding water and the Great Artesian Basin

Me gesticulating during my artist's talk at the opening of Cosmological Landscapes

Photo: Courtesy of Dogwood Crossing

A selection of my dronescapes at Cosmological Landscapes

Cosmological Landscapes

Cosmological Landscapes

                                                               Cosmological Landscapes

                                        Cosmological Landscapes continues until May 21.

On at the same time as Cosmological Landscapes is The View From Here: An Exhibition of Papercuts. Lead artist on this project is Pamela See.

COUNTRY TRIP

A great trip to the country from Brisbane would be - Toowoomba, Dalby, to Jimbour, cut across to Chinchilla, to MILES [to see my show, and The View From Here!], then to Roma, and to Mitchell where the best scrambled eggs can be eaten at the local bakery. Plus, Mitchell has a wonderful spa complex - yes water straight from the great Artesian Basin!

Cheers, Kathryn

FIRE AND FLOOD: EXTREMUS

Fire and Flood: Extremus Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

PLANETARY HOME

I have painted another image that speaks to our planetary home's current environmental dilemmas - extreme weather events, environmental degradation, pollution and more. What is not consumed by fire and heat will be subsumed by flooding waters - maybe? 

The type of landscape is unclear - it appears to be both sky and land, cosmic even. Is the fire a sign of earthly remnants burning off their last signs of existence? Is the flood the spilling of cosmic tears? Are we looking through tears down onto a landscape or up through them to an endless sky? Maybe the fire and the flood are ghostly essences, reminders that a planet once existed? 

But, maybe the fire and flood are signs of new life, a cauldron of possibility? Maybe fire, water and unseen forces are stirring universal alchemic processes that bring forth new possibilities? These new possibilities - material or spiritual...

INSPIRATION
Apart from thinking about our planet and its future, and therefore humanity's future, this painting was inspired by recent devastating floods here in Queensland, Australia, in the aftermath of super-Cyclone Debbie. I have personally experienced rising waters in four floods, one in Dalby where I grew up, two in Goondiwindi where I lived for eighteen years and one in Brisbane during the 2011 floods. Fortunately none caused major losses. However, I do know what it is like to be an island, completely cut off, snakes seeking the same high ground you are on, the dankness of mud as the waters recede...

The painting is also inspired by memories of the massive fires my father and other farmers lit to burn off crop stubble. This practice was stopped at some stage and farmers then started to plough stubble back into the soil. However, I still have vivid childhood memories of fires that covered whole paddocks. Flames leaped into the air, into darkening skies. These flames seemed to lick at the stars, teasing them. Dusk and at night were the safest times for the farmers to set fire to stubble...the air is still then. 

The dark night skies of my childhood are the entry points for my cosmic travelling - imagined in my paintings. 

RECENT NEWS

The Center for the Study of the Drone, Bard College, New York conducted an interview with me about my dronescapes. The interviewer is Maggie Barnett.  Portfolio: Dronescapes by Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox

Cheers,

Kathryn

RUNOFF

Runoff Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

My last post was called PLAYING WITH AUSTRALIA . In that post I uploaded two recent AUSTRALIA paintings - and - here's another new one for you. I have been working with gouache and watercolour on paper for a few months and thoroughly enjoying it too. However, for every painting I upload, there's a few that have been ripped up or painted over. The process of painting is an ebb and flow, of feeling that a work is successful - not successful - successful - not successful and so on. 

RUNOFF

I have painted Australia as a series of colourful ribbon-like lines. The contours of the Australian continent seem to leak into what could be an ocean of water or an 'ocean' of space or an 'ocean' of metaphors claiming our imaginations. When I painted this image I was thinking of many things: our environment, current national and world politics, our national identity, globalisation, influence, brain drains, the environment, the future and more. 

FLOODS

I was inspired by some old photographs from my youth. These photos recorded a very serious flood that occurred in early 1981. The flood waters ripped gully-like contours into the deep black soil paddocks in and surrounding my parent's farm. Whilst it had rained heavily in our local area, it had also rained very heavily in the nearby Bunya Mountains. The runoff had traveled many kilometres onto the black soil Pirrnuan Plain where my parent's farm was situated. The erosion caused by the massive water runoff continues to scar the landscape. The photos below show you the extent of the water coverage. 

Pirrinuan Plain, Queensland, Australia Flood 1981

Pirrinuan Plain, Queensland, Australia Flood 1981

So, literal floodwater runoff got me thinking about currency - not only literal water currents, but also political currency, financial currency, contemporaneous-ness. What happens when things get out of control? When does political 'runoff' cause 'erosion' of confidence? Where does economic 'runoff' cause an 'erosion' of sustainability? There are questions about industrial and technological development and the 'runoffs' that erode environmental sustainability. What kinds of scars are our activities of the 20th and 21st century leaving for future generations?

Yet, water runoff as it travels to the lowest point can also replenish underground aquifers, dams, lakes and other water storages. In these cases abundance is not wasted, as the water is stored for future use. Thinking about this got me contemplating about how we might 'store' economic wealth in ways that ensure sustainability and equitable distribution to support social infrastructures. This is at the same time as allowing people to pursue their dreams.

How can we maintain political systems that provide a store of integrity that generates confidence? Are there ways to rebuild and then store, and therefore re-store, environmental safeguards eg: water, soil, air, flora and fauna?

RE-STORING LAND
I have a some experience with re-storing land. When I lived in Goondiwindi, further west than my childhood home, I was lucky enough to build two big beautiful  gardens. Both gardens were situated on a block out of town, beside a creek. However, the land had previously been overstocked, it had been eroded, and the only plants that seemed to thrive were prickly ones.

I had the land deep ripped. This is a process of digging deeply into the soil with a deep ripping machine towed behind a tractor. It allows air flow and water absorption, plus penetration of nutrients into the soil. I introduced nutrients by digging in rotten hay and cotton trash [leftover from the cotton gin]. I had large mounds of soil formed in big garden beds, and into these I planted hundreds of small tubular plants: eucalyptus, sheoaks and other native bushes and trees. They grew quickly as their roots were able to spread out and grow into the newly mounded and ripped soil. As time went by, the trees self-mulched the soil with their dropped leaves and I was able to plant smaller bushes and ground covers. Worms even reappeared! And, the prickly plants were largely eradicated.

Yes, we had floods in Goondiwindi too. Once my gardens and the remaining paddocks were deep ripped, and grasses and other foliage were restored, the flood waters did not strip the land, causing further erosion. Instead the water penetrated the soil and re-established sub-soil moisture profiles ie: stored water for the future! The runoff was collected...

Me starting one of the Goondiwindi gardens. The soil had already been deep ripped. 

So...I've written quite a bit - but I hope it helps you see how an artist draws upon a range of influences, experiences and thoughts. Runoff is a painting that proposes neither good nor bad outcomes, but I think it certainly triggers questions.

Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

AUSTRALIA - ONLINE EXHIBITION

 Run Off  Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Please click on the hyperlinked titles for more about each painting. 

2026 UPDATE

In March/April 2025 my curated survey exhibition DRONE: Ghosts and Shadows was held at the University of Southern Queensland, Art Gallery (Toowoomba). A few of the paintings in this AUSTRALIA- ONLINE GALLERY were in the exhibition. 

In the photo above Five Eyes and the Rest, Not Waiting for the Future are in the montage of works on paper on the far back wall. Wingman and Zooming In and Out are on the far right wall.

The painting on the floor Beliefs and Battlefields (2025) is a re-arrangeable painting. I have included here in this online gallery because there is a map of Australia. I also included a map of South East Queensland, tracking a road from from Brisbane to Dalby, via Toowoomba. This close-up places emphasis on the fact that the RAAF and Boeing collaboratively developed MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone will be assembled/manufactured at the Wellcamp  Aerospace and Defence Precinct, just outside Toowoomba. The exhibition was also held in Toowoomba, and grew up around Dalby. The round yellow piece, for me, is a field of wheat, like my father used to grow. You will see some 'ghost bat' paintings below, further into the 'gallery'.

In case you missed it, my commentary piece, 'Light-speed, contemporary war, and Australia's National Defence Strategic Review' in Digital War journal intersects with the Australia theme of this online gallery. The article includes two of my paintings. It is open access, so anyone can read it. 

And, another article in Media, War and Conflict journal is Surrendering to 'Too Powerful' Technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drone is also relevant. And, it is open access too.

2024 UPDATE

I last updated this AUSTRALIA-ONLINE EXHIBITION on 26 January 2022. I started it in 2016, and updated it in 2017. And now it is the 26 January 2024. The date has become increasingly contentious as a celebration. 

I offer this exhibition as a stimulus for reflection. This includes - Australia's history, it's profile in the contemporary world, it's planetary existence ... and you may think of a few contemplations too.

  

I have created a few more Australian linked paintings since 2022. I have also achieved my PhD [Curtin University, Western Australia]. My PhD, "Drones, Signals, and the Techno-Colonisation of Landscape", was a creative practice-lead project examining increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum.

Zooming In and Out Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2023

 

Suspended Landscape Oil on linen 67 x 61 cm 2023

Zooming In and Out and Suspended Landscape  [above] clearly depict the Australian continent. Both visually play with computer graphic-like markings, for example, geolocation, terrain visualisation, orienting, and targeting markers. This reflects my interest in how landscape is mapped to enable machines - remotely operated or autonomous - to operate in our earthly environment. Does this computer generated aesthetic affect our interpretations of landscape? How will humans need to accommodate a co-existence with robotic ground, air, sea machines? Lots of questions! Please click on the hyperlinked titles to read my original posts.

The three paintings below do not depict the Australian continent, but they do intersect with Australian endeavours. 

Ghost Shadows Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2023

            MQ-28 Ghost Bat  oil on 30 interchange-able boards 61 x 500 cm 2022-2023

Ghost Shadows and MQ-28 Ghost Bat are two paintings from a larger group that depict or include the Royal Australian Air Force and Boeing collaboratively developed MQ-28 Ghost Bat drone, previously called the Loyal Wingman. 

My multi piece work, MQ-28 Ghost Bat, was inspired by James Rosenquist's 1964-1965 massive 59 piece work F-111. In the early 1960s the F-111 was considered a gamechanger military aircraft. It was the first multi-modal combat aircraft - bombing and surveillance. Its wings folded back, and it flew at supersonic speeds. The Ghost Bat drone has been described as a gamechanger drone, also due to it multi-modal capabilities, including autonomous flying. 

Rosenquist's painting also reflected upon the bourgeoning 1960s consumer society and the military-industrial complex. My painting reflects upon the development of militarised machinery and systems in an increasingly network-centric world. Unlike Rosenquist's F-111, the pieces that make up my painting are interchangeable. This is an aesthetic intersection [a disruption] with new modes of war eg; mosaic war, multi-domain, network-centric, information, hybrid, cyber, electromagnetic warfare. That this cacophony inserts its influence into civilian technological needs, operations, and capabilities is also of critical interest and concern. 

And, there is a lot more to say! 

HYPERSONIC (AUKUS Dream) Oil on linen 56 x 112 cm 2022

HYPERSONIC: (AUKUS Dream) references Australia's commitment, through the AUKUS [Australia, United Kingdom, United States] partnership, to develop hypersonic weapons and counter-hypersonic capabilities. Like Zooming In and Out and Suspended Landscape I have visualised computer graphic-like markings - dots, circles - to 'map' hypersonic ballistic, glide and cruise missile trajectories. The painting 'suggests' they make an alternative landscape.  

The painted landscape of land and mountains, over which the trajectories and data points are mapped, is inspired by my childhood landscape. When I painted this I was thinking about the eastern view from our farm on the flat Pirrinuan plain [western Queensland], toward the Bunya Mountains. Please click on the hyperlink to take you to my original HYPERSONIC: (AUKUS Dream) post.

2022 UPDATE

I started this AUSTRALIA-ONLINE EXHIBITION on 26 January 2016. I updated it in 2017. And, now I have updated it again on 26 January 2022.

Since the last update in 2017 I've painted a few more Australia-themed paintings. Unlike the others, a couple of the newer paintings do not include the continent of Australia, but they are definitely Australian. One depicts Australia's Parliament House, and the other a segment of the Australian flag. 

Please click the hyperlinked titles to read more about each painting.

Wingman Oil on linen 97 x 115 cm 2020

Australian Landscape - A Metaphor Oil on linen 61 x 66 cm 2021

Not Waiting for the Future Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2018

Pay Attention: The Drones Are Here Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

Five Eyes and the Rest Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2019

Drones and Code: Future Now Oil on linen 40 x 56 cm 2018

AUSTRALIA

ONLINE EXHIBITION

Relaunched
26 January 2017.

In 2016 I curated an online exhibition of my paintings where the continent of Australia is the 'landscape' or part of a more cosmic-like landscape. 

Between January 2016 and January 2017 I created a few more paintings that depict the Australian continent from various perspectives - melting, cut in half, targeted and more. So, I've added them to the online exhibition. The original exhibition displayed paintings in a chronology from the most recent to those from 2010. This is now updated!

POLITICAL - ENVIRONMENTAL - SOCIAL ISSUES

The images of the Australian continent can be 'read' many ways, but they each have a capacity to intersect with current political, environmental and social issues. 

For example:

Interregnum was painted in direct response to the Australian Federal election where a hung parliament seemed likely. 

Aeropolitics Imagined and What If? directly refer to Australia's position within broader global issues associated with accelerating developments in militarised technology and the blurring of civilian and military use of infrastructure and systems. The figure of the unmanned airborne drone features in this two paintings.

I'll leave it up to you now!

* Click on the hyperlinked titles or the images to be taken to the previous posts where I discuss each work.

 Australia Turned Upside Down Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

 Dissolving Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

 Interregnum Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

 Aeropolitics Imagined Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

What If? Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Australian Landscape - Cutout Oil on linen 50 x 70 cm 2015

I include this 2015 in the updated exhibition because I had not included it in the original one.

ORIGINAL 2016 EXHIBITION 

[1] From The Other Side Gouache and Watercolour on Paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

AUSTRALIA

ONLINE EXHIBITION

 An exhibition of twelve paintings
completed between 2010

and 

26 January 2016

A few weeks ago I realised that over the years I have included the continent of Australia in many of my paintings. So, unlike my many landscape paintings which have been inspired by the Australian landscape, the paintings in this online exhibition all depict the Australian continent...as the landscape.

[2] Verso Watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016 

[3] Our Bright Future Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

This painting was inspired by watching Kevin Slavin's fabulous TED talk

  How Algorithms Shape Our World. At one point he says "It's a bright future if you're an algorithm."

GENERAL STATEMENT 

I have curated the exhibition with the latest paintings first. As you scroll down you will see how the images have reflected my thoughts, concerns and inspirations over time. 

Cosmology*, space, existential risk posed by emerging technologies *, age-old symbols [especially the tree-of-life] and associated themes are inspirational triggers for my paintings. However, underlying all of these is a desire to explore and re-negotiate concepts of landscape. 

Taking a cosmological point of view, I am particularly interested in un-tethering landscape from Earth-bound horizons to create what I call 'cosmic landscapes'. By doing this I propose that new perspectives of Earth, our Universal environment and humanity's place within it are revealed. 

We describe other planets, moons etc in landscape terms, so 'landscape' as a descriptor has already escaped Earth's horizons. 

* Cosmology is the scientific study of the Universe across all temporal and spatial scales.

* Existential risk posed by emerging technologies is a relatively new multi-disciplinary research area with aims to identify risks, develop mitigation strategies and ultimately ensure that technological development is for the benefit of humanity. 

[4] Simulated Landscape Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2016

Binary code 'instructs' Australia! Welcome to the post 21st century! 

AUSTRALIA - UNLEASHED

In my very recent Australia paintings I have unleashed Australia from Earth! The continent seems to float in Space? By reversing Australia, filling it with binary code and extracting it from the globe I've attempted to reveal new perspectives which, I propose, provoke questions about what it means to be an Australian in the 21st century. Indeed, what does it mean to be a human, even an earthling, in this cosmological and technological 21st century?  

Stephen Hawking, in the lead up to this year's Reith Lecture, which he is giving on the 26 January, has commented that this century is significant, because exponential technological development presents not only amazing benefits, but also potentially apocalyptic possibilities. If we are to avoid the latter we need to be very careful now ie: this century. Hawking echoes the concerns of cosmologist Lord Martin Rees who made similar provocative comments in his 2003 book Our Final Century.  I have previously written about Rees's marvelous book where he goes into various apocalyptic scenarios, that could result in the annihilation of humanity and more. Sobering stuff, but also motivational.

I propose that Rees's and Hawking's concerns make it clear that whether we are Australian or not, we share a planet called Earth with all other humans and living creatures. It is our only home for the foreseeable future, so let's look after it and get on with each other. 

EARLIER AUSTRALIA PAINTINGS 

My earlier Australia paintings, whilst landscapes, are also statements about the Australian environment and how we commoditise it. Hence, I have used small $ signs to paint water and in the case of Commoditised [No: 7] I have used small red $ signs to paint the entire continent. The tree-of-life, which I have used in a number of paintings in this online exhibition, creates land, sea and sky as it cascades across paintings. By juxtaposing $ signs with the tree-of-life questions about how we think about 'value' are asked.

I grew up on a grain farm on the Darling Downs, Queensland and then spent many of my adult years further west, living in Goondiwindi, which is on the border of Queensland and New South Wales. These earlier paintings reflect my observations, over many years, of water and associated issues.

 BUT

Whilst the paintings in this AUSTRALIA Online Exhibition have varying degrees of political agency they are not simply didactic. Why? Because, whether I have filled Australia with a tree-of-life, binary code, $ signs, turned it back to front, cut it out of the globe...I hope the paintings are open-ended enough to stir your wonder and imagine too.

[5] Privileged Landscape Oil on linen 80 x 140 cm 2015

PRIVILEGED LANDSCAPE

I have Privileged Landscape hanging in my dining area and I love it. I know I am the artist, but this one stops me in my tracks, even for an instant, every time I see it. Why? It's not only because of the arresting colour, it's because it makes me think...and laugh a bit. 

There is more than one landscape in Privileged Landscape. There's the whole painting...a cosmic landscape. And, there's the Australian continent floating in Space and then there's the cutout of Australia, with the Universe visible on the other side. The umbilical-like blue string conjures all sorts of thoughts about global relationships, historical connections, cosmological awareness and more... 

[6] Murray Darling Currency Oil on linen 120 x 160 cm  2012

MURRAY DARLING CURRENCY

A tree-of-life cascades across the painting creating Australia and the surrounding seas. The Murray Darling Basin is painted in small blue $ signs, to represent questions of value. I am also playing with the term 'currency' which can be applied to water and money, plus political cache. 

I grew up in rural Queensland and spent many of my adult years even further west. This painting and others like it, are inspired by decades living in the country and being acutely aware of water issues. 

[7] Lifeblood Oil on linen 70 x 140 cm 2011

LIFEBLOOD

In Lifeblood Australia is part of a world map created with the help of a tree-of-life. The red is symbolic of the fact that no matter what colour our skin is, or what religion we follow [or not], we all have red blood flowing through our veins. We all ultimately return to the Earth too. 

[8] Commoditised Oil on linen 30 x 30 cm 2011

COMMODITISED

This painting is self explanatory. However, like my other $ paintings, the viewer is not initially aware of the small $ signs. From a distance they are not discernible, but they are when viewed up close. This is a deliberate tactic on my part...

[9] From Another Perspective Gouache and watercolour on paper 30 x 42 cm 2011

FROM ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

As often happens when an artist reviews a body of their own work, I noticed a painting from 2011 that seems to herald my recent works. From Another Perspective depicts the Australian continent from both front and behind, or above or below, mirrored and not mirrored. The tree-of-life stands as a beacon of life. This painting was certainly the precursor of paintings done 3-5 years later. I can see that now...

[10] Underground Currency Oil on linen 80 x 100 cm 2010

UNDERGROUND CURRENCY

The area of the Great Artesian Basin, Australia's magnificent underground system of aquifers is painted in small blue $ signs. The word 'currency' in the title plays with ideas of water flow, money and political 'currency'. It also signifies that issues of water, and how we 'value' water, are current...contemporary topics. 

[11] Murray Darling Currency Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm [52 x 63 Framed] 2010

MURRAY DARLING CURRENCY [Above]

GAB: GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN [Below]

The work on paper above inspired the larger painting with the same title [No. 5 Murray Darling Currency above]. It is part of a series of paintings themed on water issues. Not all of them had $ signs

However, the one below has small $ signs symbolising the 'currency' of the great Artesian Basin! This painting inspired the large oil painting above called Underground Currency [No.10].

These two paintings are framed and look great hanging together.

[12] GAB: Great Artesian Basin Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm [ 52 x 63 cm Framed] 2010

 I hope you have enjoyed this 'exhibition':

All these paintings are available for purchase.

If you are interested please contact me by using the 

Contact Form

in the right column of this blog.

..........................................................................................

Cheers,

Kathryn

www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com