Warb’s Harbour

Waub Harbour is named after Wauba Debar (1792-1832), a female Aboriginal Tasmanian. Wauba Debar, as a teenager, was kidnapped and enslaved by sealers and whalers for sexual explotation during the European colonisation of Tasmania. She drowned in 1832 as she rescued two sealers. Waub Harbour is located in Bicheno which is noted for its distinctive red lichen on granite outcrops and its impressive blowholes. Like much of the Australian landscape its astonishing beauty incudes a bleak past. On a recent trip to Tasmania we visited Bicheno and I subsequently painted this landscape on my return home.

John Waller

2021

oil on Canvas