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ARTISTS IN ISOLATION | 2020

Ngaere Donald

Orbost, East Gippsland, May 2020

 

I have been very busy painting no matter what crisis is thrown at me. While the fires were raging, and after, I just had to paint what was happening around me. For a little while I had a love/hate affair with acrylic paints. I was able to paint on site and record the aftermath of fires before the lockdown occurred.

 

We live across the valley from Orbost and I painted the fire from our place as it impacted near Orbost that night. We were on tenterhooks all the time with so many watch and act messages, with bags in the car one day ready to leave. Our horses were trucked out when the fires were coming. 'What about me?' is the horse who was left behind, there was no room on the truck for him. We were lucky, but so sad to see so much devastation.

 

I live in social isolation and this present lockdown is having little effect on me. I have enjoyed painting in my indoor/outdoor studio, it’s an old cow shed on the top of the hill. I have been recording or making a visual diary of what's been happening on the local landscape. I have just gone back to painting in oils with a painting knife.

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I have been fascinated by the abstract landscape, the vertical and horizontal shapes of the landscape. The painting of the tree ferns, is up the old Buchan road. The green being the only colour in such a vacant landscape.

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My latest oil painting is 'A Bush Scene' you can see it on the back of my 'mobile studio'.

 

I am part of the Wilderness Coast Artists and we are having an exhibition at the end of July in Melbourne at AGRA Galleries, the Australian Guild of Realist Artists.  I also have an exhibition at Amegilla Gallery in Bruthen at Easter 2021. So, I need to keep painting. It's excellent for mental health also!

 

Thank you for offering this online space to share my work . It’s also really wonderful to see what other creative people are up to.

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-Ngaere Donald, Orbost, May 2020

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