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).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...

Apes go to the movies - and remember the scenes

Apes remember major events in movies, even after a single viewing. That’s the findings of primate research in Japan (New Scientist, September 17, 2015). Researchers at the Kyoto University in Japan conducted experiments with two species of apes – chimpanzees and bonobo primates – to test their memory and recall. Instead of using food to test memory, they used films. The researchers made two short movies to show to the apes. Fumihiro Kano and his colleague, Satoshi Hirata, starred in the films with another person dressed as an ape. They wanted to have strong dramatic scenes to see if the apes remembered them. In the first 30-second movie the character ape bursts through a door on the right hand side (there is also a door on the left hand side) and attacks the two researchers (characters) 18 seconds after the start. After 24 seconds a human character choses one of two weapons next to each other and launched a revenge attack on the ape. In the second 30-second movie t...

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), 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 Suda...

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog