Artist Statement
Walking with Lichen in Wilpena
A walk along a fire track in Wilpena Pound led to A Walk with Lichen in Wilpena. The pale green lichen against the broken surface of magenta rock was eye-catching but the lichen itself was compelling: irregular structures and surfaces, lacy edges bordering a complex network of small, circular and irregular darker pockets that partially covered a variety of rocks and the limbs of trees.
Sitting behind this interest were the memories of a stone in a rock fence imprinted with an ancient black fern, the maiden hair fern in the bush near a childhood house, a grandmother’s fernery and the giupure lace of a mother’s dress.
Realizing these resonances in a more sculptural form led to moulding dampened 600 GSM paper around two shoe lasts. In the process, a suggestion of mountain ridges evolved echoing the steep rise of the magenta rock of the Pound which surges and fades in the changing light.
Much of the world is experienced through the sole of the shoe. Humans explore, discover, trample and trespass and in this process encounter and store experiences that lead to creative artefacts. To walk across the floor of the pound is to see what compels wonder. The variations in the vegetation, the trickles of water seeping from the rocks above to the rivulets below, the large tress on their edges, the softening presence of lichen on rocks and trees, all leads to a sense of safe encasement.
A Walk with Lichen in Wilpena draws on the details of a recent experience and the deeply embedded memories of patterns and forms from the past.
