available artwork
about the artist
Freedom Wilson has been based in Katoomba since 2006 and is an artist who is inspired by her bushwalking adventures and her passion for local ecology. Drawing and sketching on location forms the foundation for her printmaking practice and the work in this exhibition comprises both silkscreens and cyanotypes on paper.
Freedom’s exhibition has developed from fieldwork on the Narrowneck plateau, south of Katoomba; a favourite destination renowned for its sandstone and ironstone rock formations, low growing eucalyptus forests and a plethora of grasses, isopogons, orchids, banksias and grevillea species. This area was badly affected by the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires that exposed a fragile environment normally concealed by dense bush. The artist hints at regrowth and regeneration with the return of blue hues and reflective atmospheric light from the eucalyptus oils.
The artworks capture the essence of the mountains at day’s end… twilight… the last light of the day at a favourite place – on Gundungurra country.
artist statement
The Narrow Neck Plateau field studies are an investigative print journal of blue reflective light gradually returning to the Blue Mountains after the 2019/2020 bushfires.
Charred gum leaves meant that eucalypt oils were not emitted. The blue hues which create a spectacular sensation from plateau to valley views, disappeared until the bush began considerable regeneration.
My print palette was white and grey for a while there, fragile ash soils without vegetation. The beautiful forms of the sandstone and iron stone plateau were exposed and accessible for drawing, and eventually interesting plants emerged; some like the Sun Orchids and Pink Flannel flowers profusely.
The walk to Castle Head was accessible and my regular, for plants and for the sunrise and the sunset, an immersive place to see weather drift by. It was sitting here a few months back, that I first realised the blue had returned. There had been enough regrowth for Eucalyptus oils released by the afternoon sun to drench the view to Yerranderrie with a hypnotic blue, an important marker for recovery, and once again an energised print palette.
This selection of silkscreen and cyanotype prints are a glimpse of the beautifulgeology and plantlife found on the Narrowneck Plateau, soaked in first light, Summer fog, Autumn mist, afternoon light and twilight, through out the recovery stages of the last two years.
Freedom Wilson
June 2022
