Landscape art: Farming without fences
Artist Helen S Tiernan explores the different ways our land is viewed and managed.
The way we view landscape is a common though ever-changing theme in art.
In her new exhibition Farming Without fences - how Aborigines made Australia Canberra artist Helen S. Tiernan explores the different ways land has been viewed and managed by the people she calls 'new comers' (colonial settlers) and First Australians.
Her work has a number of inspirations including her Aboriginal heritage, the way the ACT landscape has changed over the years and Professor Bill Gammage's award-winning book The Biggest Estate on Earth - How Aborigines made Australia.
Helen is also interested in early colonial artworks and wall papers, patterns and edges.
"Everything in life is a duality," she explains. "You can't see black unless you've got white, you know, you can't see big unless you've got small.
"The edges is about not just the edges of the forest ... what the new comers brought with them was the decorative patterning in gold, gilt framed edges - depends how you spell 'gilt' - and then ... the patterns on the land made by fire."
Professor Bill Gammage launched the exhibition at the Belconnen Arts Centre and has urged visitors to follow the paintings by the order in which they've been hung.
"And then when they've done it," he says, "go and look at the country and see what we're missing by not being able to duplicate a lot of what Aboriginal people did."
His favourite painting in the exhibition is Colonial wall papers - wealth opportunity abundance.
"It's five canvases that make one painting," he says, "which sums up how miniscule the European understanding is of Aboriginal land management."
The exhibition is on at the Belconnen Arts Centre until 16 February.