Broken Hill Art Scene: Ron Kandelaars travels through Outback South Australia to check out Broken Hill
At times the sheer vastness of the Australian outback can be intimidating. But each year more and more people head bush wanting to experience that ‘other Australia’. Away from city lights and traffic the heat haze confounds our sense of distance and the open road stretches for mile upon mile.
The mass exodus to the bush is confirmation that our own view of this vast continent has changed, possibly because we've seen a lot more of it on film and on canvas.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in a place like Broken Hill - a town with more than a hundred artists and thirty galleries.
“I think there are more artists per head of population in this town than anywhere else in the world,” said Roxanne Minchin. “It's quite amazing.
Roxanne has built on the traditions of Pro Hart, Jack Absalom and of course her late husband, artist and accountant Eric Minchin - a founding father of a group who would become world famous as the "Brushman of the Bush".
“It kicked off in 1973 with Eric. He was asked to do an exhibition and he found that he didn't have enough time to get it together so he asked a few of his friends.
“The Women’s Weekly turned up and did a full colour double spread and called it the Brushman of the Bush. And Eric thought wow what a name. So he contacted them and they said sure you can use the name and Eric thought we've got something.
“And showed people that you could be an accountant, you could be a miner and paint - you didn't have live in a garret. It got people more interested in Australian art.
Roxanne represents the new wave with her vibrant paintings of Broken Hill and its surrounds.
“I've been painting professionally for twenty five years and I bet if you asked any artist in town what it is about Broken Hill it would be the light that we have here. It's very intense and it's out there and it just enhances all the colours that we have.”
Those colours bring an almost surreal quality to Roxanne's work.
The surreal also features heavily in the work of Pro Hart. His gallery is in the back streets of Broken Hill and houses one of the finest private collections in the world. Here, you'll find the works of Arthur Boyd, Sydney Nolan and many more. And, of course, the works of the former Broken Hill miner himself.
Out here art surrounds you and if you need proof, head to the Big Picture in the Silver City Mint and Art Centre. It's the home of the world's largest acrylic painting on canvas - all one hundred metres of it. It features approaching dust storms to depictions of the Hill's most recent artistic phenomenon - the Sculpture Symposium on the outskirts of town.
It takes a visionary to capture the scale of this country. But the visionaries who first tried to paint this weren't your typical brushmen - they were bushmen.
Take Jack Absalom - he knows this country like the back of his hand having grown up on the Nullarbor Plain. His gallery is full of South Australian images like Mount Patawarta in the Flinders and the Breakaways further north. They're all big vistas and worthy of a big canvas.
“I love this area and I think this (big picture) depicts the vastness and the distance and everything else,” Jack told us. “And the beauty of it all. A lot of people look at that and think there's not a lot of beauty there. There's no nice green or that. I love this type of country.”
To see what he means visit Jack’s gallery. It’s one of many listed at the Broken Hill Visitor Information Centre. The Centre also sells copies of Art of Broken Hill, a book featuring many of the town's artists and galleries.
Broken Hill Art Trail
Details available at the Broken Hill Visitor Information Centre
Cnr Bromide & Blend Streets
Open Daily 8.30am - 5pm
Ph (08) 8088 9700“Art of Broken Hill” - RRP $24.95
Available at the Visitor Information Centre
Broken Hill Visitor Information Centre
Phone: +61 (0)8 8088 9700 or 1300 557 036
Fax: +61 (0)8 8088 5209
Email: tourist@brokenhill.nsw.gov.au
Web: www.visitbrokenhill.com.au
