Fire in the Kimberley 1982

JOHN OLSEN born 1928

Fire in the Kimberley 1982

oil on canvas
151.0 x 136.0 cm
signed and dated lower left: John Olsen '82

Provenance:
The Artist, South Australia, 1982
Private collection, Adelaide

Estimate: $100000 - 140000

In 1982 the Christensen Fund provided for an eclectic group of talented Australian’s to explore the remote North West region of Australia. The members included conservationist, scientist and film-maker Vincent Serventy, writer Geoffrey Dutton, author and historian Mary Durack, photographer and project coordinator Alex Bortignon and artist John Olsen.

 

Olsen was acutely aware that Australia’s early visual history was limited to the eastern coastal fringe, arguing that ‘No painting of the desert was done until Hans Heysen went to the Flinders Ranges in 1922’ and quoting Robert Frost that 'The land was ours before we were the land's’.1 A book Olsen co-authored further contended ‘Ever since the earliest artist-explorers journeyed into the interior, the Australian desert has held a special fascination for artists. A region of stark contrasts, alternating dramatically between parched barrenness and ephemeral lushness, the desert was unknown for thousands of years to all save its Aboriginal inhabitants.’2 The ten week trip sponsored provided an opportunity for Olsen, the eternal Bondi boy, to attempt to redress the imbalance. The result of the groups’ endeavours was the publication ‘The Land Beyond Time’ and the works by Olsen toured Australia extensively under the same title as the book.

 

The contrast of the dry harsh interior of the Kimberley with Olsen’s shimmering beach and Sydney harbour upbringing could not have been more striking. The subject of fire in particular, was an interesting new foray for Olsen. For tens of thousands of years, fire had been an essential element of life in the desert for Aboriginal people. It was an important survival tool employed for signaling and ceremonies. It was also an essential land management tool used in the cooler months to ‘clean up’ areas of the country for walking and hunting, to create fire breaks to minimise the risk of large destructive summer fires and to encourage fresh new plant growth and animal foods.

 

During the Christensen trip, Olsen’s exposure to the effect of fire on the landscape was recorded by Serventy:

 

Fires burned through much of this country during the dry season, and when we looked down from the helicopters we were all struck by the almost perfect outlines of trees drawn in ash on the brown soil. They would have been created when fire ate slowly through the bases of the trees until they crashed to the ground, where the fires continued to convert all the timber, including the topmost branches, to ash. John found these patterns of nature irresistible and by the end of the flight he had covered page after page of his notebook with sketches.3

 

The view of the fire swept landscape from the helicopters allowed Olsen, Australia’s leading living artist and ‘one of the most important artists to have dealt with the imagery of the desert’4 to gain a magnificent aerial perspective. In Fire in the Kimberley, Olsen realised the potential of this perspective to wonderful dramatic effect by setting the scene at night and heightened it with the inclusion of the hauntingly beautiful flickering flames.

 

Footnotes:

1. Meacham, S., ‘Paintings that find words for the land’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 October 2004.

2. McGrath, S., and Olsen, J., The Artist and the Desert, Harper Collins, Australia, 1981, inside of cover.

3. Olsen, J., with Durack, M., et al, The Land Beyond Time: A modern exploration of Australia's north-west frontiers, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1984, p.204.

4. McGrath, S., and Olsen, J., op cit, p.120.

 

 

 

Marina Brennan BA (Hons)