These paintings below were inspired by the small mallee remnant near Moombooldool along the Burley Griffin Highway near Barellan on the way to Griffith.

The paintings below were included as past of a finalists exhibition for the Calleen Art Awards which were held in the Cowra Regional Gallery in 2011, 2012 & 2013.

The captions under the paintings explain further.

Above: ‘Moombooldool Mega Fauna’ is number three of a series of paintings of the Moombooldool mallee remnant. This roadside strip of vegetation is a sad relic of a former natural wilderness.

One can only imagine the Mega fauna of 60,000 years ago…

The three metre ‘Dromornis stirtoni’; a monstrous goose-like bird roaming with thunderous foot falls and eerie calls across the landscape, or giant lizards and oversized cockatoos plodding and screeching at the roadside as I drive to work.

Above: Travelling to work along the Moombooldool stretch of road near Barellan allows me to interact with this once widespread Mallee landscape.
Now all that remains are the roadside strips.
In ‘Moombooldool Lastlings’ I use vivid colours to express my emotional response to this abandonment and neglect of nature.
The Feathertail Glider and the Pterostylis orchid symbolise the last living things facing extinction; ‘Lastlings’
‘Art will never be able to exist without nature’. Pierre Bonnard

The above painting ‘Moombooldool Rhapsody’ is my reflection upon a struggling roadside remnant of the once widespread Mallee environment.

Discreet, camouflaged and ambiguous. My painting is illuminated by the energy and tenacity of creatures – echidnas, geckoes, bats, lizards and butterflies which reach a crescendo at night.

Encouragement for this painting comes from the French painter Andre Derain who wrote: ‘every shadow is a whole world of brightness and luminosity opposed to sunlight: these are called reflections.‘

It pains me to think that most people drive down the highway through my ‘Moombooldool Rhapsody’ oblivious to its decline.