"Quenching the morning's thirst" Acrylic & Oil on Canvas 45 cm x 45 cm
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
The beautiful Australian Magpie has always inspired me. As a young girl I clearly remember looking through an enormous arch shaped window of a very old building onto towering gum trees. I was searching for the group of magpies that were making the most heavenly sound. I had just started in the junior school choir at the time and we practised once or twice a week. I thought “These birds are incredible. Here they are throwing together a complex choral masterpiece on a whim from the trees when we, in the school choir, were struggling to hold a two-part harmony.”
Much later I learned that these stunning bird songs were actually battle tunes performed to assert territorial dominance but at the time their music seemed like a glorious celebration of the Australian bush. It’s hard to imagine a bush setting like this without the melodious warbling of the Australian Magpie. This idea of the magpie song celebrating Australia’s natural beauty is the inspiration behind this exhibition.
The remote property where we live is in the Central Western farming district of NSW. Our garden drops away to a patchwork of endless plains that move with the seasons. The quilt of paddocks is set against a backdrop of deep blue mountains. In the early morning members of the huge colony of magpies that have made our garden and paddocks beyond their home, play in the garden together. They teach their young to fly from the nearby power-lines. For hours they supervise their young as they copy the technique their parents have displayed earlier. They duck and weave among the trees, dance under our sprinkler and warble atop our Hills Hoist. Their antics never fail to entertain and fascinate me.
My intention with this body of work has been to capture the personality, energy and texture of these wonderful creatures.
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