Sidney Nolan’s Riverbend at the Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra – stringy bark, Ned Kelly and the policemen

Sidney Nolan’s Riverbend is a permanent exhibition at the Drill Hall Gallery of the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.

Sidney Nolan (1917-1992) is one of Australia’s best-loved artist, known for his paintings of the bushranger Ned Kelly.

The most famous painting in the Drill Hall Gallery is Nolan’s Riverbend, a 9-panel work of 1.5 metres by 10 metres. It shows the bushland of the state of Victoria with its stringy bark trees. Hidden in the dense trees are images of Ned Kelly, the outlaw, and the policemen who are searching for him.

The medium is paint and oil colours which have been slashed with palette knives and scrapers.

Nolan painted Riverbend from 27 December 1964 to 14 January 1965, when he left Australia and was living in England. It was created from memory – as a child his holidays were spent on the Goulburn River at Shepparton in Victoria, which he called ‘my father’s country.’ He said, ‘For me, the bush is light. In Australia the light filtering through trees doesn’t form shadows, but mottled forms of light.’

In between the trees the viewer can find the iconic bushranger, Ned Kelly, playing hide-and-seek with the police (Nolan’s grandfather was a policeman who pursued Ned Kelly).

While Ned Kelly was a ‘larger-than-life’ figure, the painting shows Kelly and the policemen as insignificant figures among the trees.

http://dhg.anu.edu.au

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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