The Future of Brightness

The Future of Brightness connects with everything I perceive uniquely Australian in my cultural subconscious. The artwork suggests the rich ochres on which our ancient land is built and from which the culture of our indigenous peoples created their dreamtime stories. It pushes into the vast unknowable horizons we live with on a daily basis.

The inspiration for the creation of this artwork came from a series of works by Australian artist Tim Storrier in the 1980s and 1990s entitled ‘the Fire Lines” and “the Blaze Lines”.  Storrier grew up in the Australian countryside fascinated by the colour and light of the vast horizons, the sunsets and the bushfires he experienced in this environment. To help him vision the artwork he wanted to create, he photographed using an old Box Brownie a line of burning kerosene on the ground. The kerosene was unreliable and whilst experimenting with other flammable material discovered burning boat lacquer produced the best photographic representation of fire.  Hence an unintended connection between The Future of Brightness and the influence of Storrier’s work is the way the boat lacquer, either on fire on the ground in Storrier’s case or coated on the hull of yacht with strong sunlight shining on it in my work, facilitates unique visions of the Australian outback.

The Future of Brightness 106 x 160cm Fine Art Print on museum quality archival paper

An insightful story Storrier tells is of a meeting in the 1980s in Melbourne with a 92 year old gentleman who had travelled by steamer from Sydney to Melbourne. After seeing Storrier’s work, he remarked on how it reminded him of the lines of fire created by the Aboriginal peoples of southern New South Wales observable from the deck of the vessel at sea.

The more I worked on the Future of Brightness, the more I felt confident I had created an artwork that distilled an imaginary vision of the Australian outback, its natural vagaries and its aesthetic beauty consistent with the current climate conditions. The irony of the title Future of Brightness is intended. Read it how you like!!.

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