Susan Stevenson - Ghosts in the Cement

Wednesday 20 March - Sunday 14 April 2024

 

Click here for artwork by Susan Stevenson 

Travelling in Europe last year, I was struck by the soft beauty in the weathered plaster of ancient buildings. The depth of colour and texture in the peeling paint and uneven plasterwork reminded me of aerial photographs of central Australia with cracks from shifting brickwork, blocked windows and forgotten doorways echoing the straight lines and random right angles of European settler land distribution. In the Australian context, however, these lines are no longer just poignant reminders of small lives passing across thresholds and generations. Boundary fences and minor roads have become earthworks visible from the air, supplanting natural landforms as defining features of the continent.

The paintings in Ghosts in the Cement embrace the often competing strands in our relationship to landscape and history in this country.