The Hunting Party

I have often delighted in the view of the sun rising through the trees with views of the Great Western Tiers from the family acreage near Deloraine. Last year I made a return visit to my place of birth, namely London. While there, I reacquainted myself with much 19C painting in the National Gallery and acquired a much greater appreciation of the European landscape painting of that time, especially early Turner and Claude Lorraine.

On my return to Tasmania I had a profound sense of the overlay of differing places and times and seemed to view the trees, the light and the Tiers through a curiously 19C painter’s perspective.

However, at the same time, a couple of incidents occurred involving the shooting of Pademelons and Wallabies by a posse of shooters in trucks on neighbouring properties to us and wondered if much had indeed changed since Glover’s time. Different prey perhaps. So the idea of this work titled ‘The Hunting Party’ evolved. Who is hunting what or whom though? A number of potentially disturbing narratives are possible for the viewer to ponder set in contrast to the idyllic natural beauty of the Tasmanian environment.

Keith Keith

2020

Acrylic/coloured pencil/oil on canvas