Drought on display
Scorched, dry and arid landscapes are coming to the city in wet brown and red intricate paint brush lines.
Bondi artist Sally West’s highly-textured paintings in her exhibition From Dusk to Dawn capture the drought and its effects on farmers and their families.
Coming from a family of famers, West experienced firsthand the fears and struggles of farmers dealing with drought and diminishing food production.
Referring to the recent dust storm in Sydney, West says: “People don’t realise that farmers live like that every day, and generations of farmers are losing their land. I think it’s important the city understands what is happening. It’s important to supply food but we take it for granted.”
West uses chaotic and frantic lines in her paintings to express the anxiety and tension building in farmers. She also uses washed out and sun-bleached browns and reds to represent the arid landscape: “It is just paint but it looks like spaghetti on the canvas because it is very highly textured.”
The exhibition will feature up to 30 paintings, including one that captures dawn and another that renders dusk.
West sold her first painting and had her first major solo exhibition in Bondi in 1998. Since then she has exhibited in 16 solo exhibitions and in 41 group exhibitions across the world including Germany and the United States. She is a finalist for the Palm Art Award in Germany for 2009.
From Dusk to Dawn opens on October 15 at Global Gallery at 5 Comber Street, Paddington.
– By Mary Joseph
