Field Work - Cradle Mountain

BACKGROUND The research for Field Work: Cradle Mountain is framed by questions representation, landscape and painting in art. The emergence of landscape painting as a genre marked what art historian Kenneth Clark identified in "the stages in our conception of nature". While modernism introduced more subjective modes of expression and critiqued the naturalistic and representational approach to landscape painting, interest in depictions of landscape in relation to environmentalism and sustainability has grown. CONTRIBUTION The work provides a critique of naturalism in landscape painting and presents a material approach to 2D image production. The image is produced by adhering small hand-cut pieces of archival grade brown paper tape to a white canvas ground. The landscape is presented as a fragmented experience and the work questions conceptions of space and how humans inhabit it. It contributes to debates concerning climate change and the destruction of natural environments by depicting Cradle Mountain, a central motif of the pristine Tasmanian landscape, in a submerged condition. Cradle Mountain is rediscovered and explored in a potential future where the landscape is radically altered both spatially and metaphorically. SIGNIFICANCE Produced as part of a series of 2D works on paper and canvas, this work was chosen from 250 local, national and international artists as one of 45 finalists for the Glover Prize, the richest annual prize for landscape painting in Australia. It is awarded for the work judged the best contemporary landscape painting of Tasmania. The prize recruits eminent judges: Anthony Bond (Curator, Art Gallery of NSW), Francis Parker (Curator Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art) and Marie Sierra (Head, School of Visual & Performing Arts, University of Tasmania). As a result of the exhibition, the work is now held in a private collection.