The tragedy of the Victorian bush fires unfolds. Tales are told of people dying in ways like medieval tortures. And tales also of survivors suffering, among many other tortures, the guilt of having survived.
Listening to all this on the radio this morning I too felt infected by this guilt, and as though in some way to be absolved, made this little painting, rough and ready, the rougher the more effective, it felt, to be so absolved.
Ron Dowd
Tank Stand
acrylic on board, 2009, 30cm x 35cm
In this odd country, with its extremes of climate, we endeavour to find comfort for ourselves in the inhospitable. These windmill driven tank stands, dotted on harsh land, are for me a symbol of this, a reminder, as are these tragic events, of the conditional nature of our hold on this place.
