Artists Statement:
Milestones
Here are paintings, old and new inspired by many years of travel in the vast arid land of outback Australia. Spending time living in and painting this landscape, meeting with pastoralists and traditional owners helped me to appreciate and come to some understanding of this country and to honour the ancient cultures of our first peoples. On more recent trips to Europe I was able to connect with my European heritage. I visited old churches, cathedrals, cemeteries, and historic buildings. They spoke to me of my heritage, brought to life stories from school history books, from my family and friends. But European history has never been quite at home here on this land, of big skies, red earth, and a true home to a people with a culture well developed over sixty thousand years. However, European headstones in cemeteries, old milestones in France, ancient buildings made of rock, paving stones in small villages, all seem to hold in common, stories of great depth, of history and humanity, in harmony, with those stones paving our Australian desert. The rocks lining the gorges in the Flinders Ranges and the rock art in the Kimberley, remind us of who we are, where we come from and how to value this country. These stones influence us and our ways of being, so that we can tell their stories and in so doing discover our own . Carolyn Goldberg July2021 |