Who Goes There?

Who Goes There? represents my every day experience of living on the Great Western Tiers and the feelings and senses evoked on my regular bush walks. The images have welled up from a store within. Reactions come from a love of nature. The triptych of bold, figurative abstract expressionist landscapes rendered as black and white painterly mono prints on drafting paper depict the Tasmanian scrubby bush at Poatina. The size of the prints speak of the vastness of the landscape. A sense of immediacy and directness is wrought by the brush strokes. There are no horizons, bringing the bush itself into focus. Spots suggest lichen on rocks or the presence of an eastern spotted quoll or perhaps a Tasmanian devil? My bush experience is imbued with a sense of being watched, perhaps by abundant wildlife which I frequently disturb and hear but rarely see. There is a pervading atmosphere of presence and absence. While walking my spirit is fed by the energy of the bush. I stop and talk to a wallaby, kookaburra, black cockatoo or a platypus. There is however, always an underlying sense of foreboding, as I remember the aboriginal people who once thrived here, and wonder what those ancient trees have witnessed.

Pamela Horsley

2019

Monoprint on drafting paper