23 Jan Research and Gathering Influence January 2023
Christmas in Australia 2022
It was decided that we needed to go to Sydney and cover some of the NSW area at the end of 2022 to help create a new collection of artwork which the galleries would become recipient of during the year. During the time there, I would go out and research some of the amazing landscapes and bring this influence back into the studio for the start of 2023 and let this filter into the art I planned to produce. I wanted to be able to mix up some natural colours which you would find naturally on rocks and trees alongside some of the more industrial man made colours what you would see in the more out of the main cities industrial areas that the country relies upon for export and farming.
I have family members who rely on the outback and farming as a main source of income, so we decided to pay them a visit and go and see what we could find. My brother in law lives in a remote area of Australia called Hanwood, which is near Griffith, NSW. The area itself was borne of Migrant Italian families going to the area and cultivating wine grapes, something which has given birth to the many wines available in that area, principally the Bortolli family. The soil is primed for grape growing and the area itself if fed by man made river inlets to give the area water to grow the grapes. Due to this, you get a vast array of steel farming equipment which has decayed over the years, this gives off some amazing colours as the materials have decayed in the heat and the direct sunlight.
Some of the natural colours you see in the everyday space are created due to the high amount of mineral and iron ore deposits in the earth, the country is rich in most minerals and you can understand why mining takes place across all the regions where geological reposts suggest that the deposits are at a maximum.
Where my brother in Law works, its mainly a mix of chicken farming, orange orchards and wine producing, I got a chance to see some of the farming up close and record some instant art with my iphone.
Hidden Dangers
Over the course of 10 days researching the area, I had probably given myself enough time to gather the visual information that I required to take back to the studio and create a new collection of art for the studio and to send out to galleries over the course of the next few months.
