Painting Relic Painting

I was walking a denuded rocky ridge above the mining town last summer when I came across some things quite startling. I wrote to the University plant scientists and they said it was Agastachys odorata or fragrant candle bush or White Waratah. It is the only species of this genus, and is native only in the western and southern Tasmania. It was probably a relic from pre-settlement rainforest before the destruction wrought by the miners in the late 19th century.

Raymond Arnold

2011

Acrylic on canvas, diptych