I am very new at this way of doing things so bear with me while I learn. For many years, I have painted the Aussie landscape, exploring the outback since the 80s, and bringing to my artworks the energies and colours of our fabulous desert landscapes and wild places. What intrigues me is the way our gumtrees are shaped like us… they are unruly, wild and free, growing in many different ways, varied colours, various shapes and differing flowers, marking our landscapes with their curvaceous trunks. They remind me of people, us, the true Aussies who like to be independant and free thinking. We roam around our island continent in 4WDs, 2WDs, many of us like snails with our campers and vans dragging behind us…. looking into every corner we can find, constantly being amazed by the variety of landscapes contained within our country.
While this is true of us that live in regional Oz, recent lockdowns have driven the city folk who formerly used to go o’seas, to also explore this great land…. so hopefully many of them now, see just how beautiful and wild this country is. Hopefully they also will start to see the damage being done to the landscape and like me, start to care for Australia and think about how they vote and which companies they invest in. We can keep Oz beautiful, wild and free if everyone cares for this country as the indigenous people do.
And so I keep painting this land hoping for a bright future for all of us! Look, watch, care for and respect this land for it takes care of us in return.
Joy Engelman 