Colours of an Ancient Landscape with Rowdy Wylie Part 2

The ancient landscape of the Flinders Ranges is peppered with the ruins of early European settlement - an inspiration to artists and photographers. Some settlements survive to serve the farming communities and tourists but the spirit of the ancient Sahul landscape continues to dominate.

When the land mass that is now Australia broke off from the supercontinent Gondwanaland, the smaller continent that formed was called Sahul. What is amazing to realise is that it is highly likely that one of the first superhighways of migration used by the first nation people was through what we now know as The Flinders Ranges. 1

Here is a slice from one of the paintings Rowdy Wylie has just completed following his trip to the Flinders Ranges. You will see all three new paintings in the next post.

A slice from Land of Dreamtime by Rowdy Wylie ©

Rowdy Wylie says:

I decided to take the journey to the Flinders Ranges to seek inspiration about colours and compositions, hoping to return to my "studio shed" to produce some “new landscape” paintings....

Even before starting the trip I knew that the title of at least one of the paintings would be: “The Colours of an Ancient Landscape”.

As we continue our journey with Rowdy into the Flinders Ranges we should take a moment to look into the pages of the book he purchased in Quorn: titled “The Flinders Ranges” with the text by Hans Mincham and paintings by Bill Walls. 1.

If we think in terms of colour and composition, paintings of these early settlements blend into the landscape almost seamlessly partly because the buildings and structures were created from materials hewn from the ground but also because, unlike a modern structure, they weren't created as a work of art, a statement in their own right, but rather to serve the needs of the men and women who chose to live and work in this remote terrain.

Blinman and Hawker are both settlements in the Northern Flinders Ranges.

Kanyaka Station is particularly interesting and a delight to the artist's eye.

Kanyaka Station was a cattle and sheep station in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia located at Kanyaka, approximately 40 km (25 miles) north-north-east of Quorn, South Australia, along Hawker-Stirling North Road.

The area was inhabited by Aboriginal people for thousands of years before European settlement. The traditional owners of the area are the Barnggarla people. The name of the station is taken from the Aboriginal word thought to mean 'Place of stone'. 3

Rowdy Wylie has captured the ruins of early settlements in the Flinders Ranges in some of his paintings.

And now we come near to unveiling of the latest works from The Shed of Rowdy Wylie inspired from his trip of a remarkable spiritual, timeless, rugged, remote and colourful region of South Australia... a "big" country.

Here is an indication of his palette.

Rowdy Wylie's palette for the Flinders Ranges 

Today - a very warm welcome to B.F. in Australia who has joined the Anart4Life blog. We do hope you enjoy the art journey with us.

And tomorrow you will learn more about the Colours of an Ancient Landscape as seen through Rowdy Wylie's eyes and artistic expression of - Land of Dreamtime, Colours of Millennia and Indigenous Monument.

Credits
1. theconversation.com
2. The Flinders Ranges, text by Hans Mincham, paintings by Bill Walls, 1978, Rigby Ltd., Adelaide
3. en.wikipedia.org