Tea Tree Bay within the Noosa National Park is a special place for artist Peter Hudson. It’s also a special place for his daughter, Grace. In fact, she inspired her father to spend time there painting.
“She’s always been something of a nature kid,” Hudson explains. “It’s just such a special spot.”
And now it’s a special place for him too, as his current exhibition Right Place, Right Time at Mitchell Fine Art in Fortitude Valley reveals with a gorgeous suite of paintings of this magical location.
If you are a surfer, you will know this beautiful spot with its sandy, rock-fringed beach, its pandanus tree-framed views and waters where turtles and dolphins mingle out beyond the breakers. If you are a walker or a nature lover you may also know it. And love it … as Peter Hudson does, now.
“It’s the quintessential place where the land meets the sea,” Hudson says. “It simply doesn’t get any better than Tea Tree Bay. All the time I was painting there I was thinking about what it must have been like pre-1770. The view I had when I was painting is the same view the Aboriginal people would have had then.”
Hudson is something of a master of painting en plein air (out in the open) and says he spends about 50 per cent of his time doing that, the rest in his Maleny studio.
It seems only fair that his show is appearing alongside one of Indigenous art, Wadeye Barks, considering that the First Nations people of this land were the first to paint en plein air here. In colonial times the Heidelberg School – Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts and others – famously begun a more modern tradition which artists such as Peter Hudson are part of.
Wadeye, also known as Port Keats, is a remote Aboriginal community about 230km southwest of Darwin in the Northern Territory. Wadeye is one of the largest Aboriginal towns in the region and is renowned for its rich cultural traditions and vibrant artistic heritage.
Aboriginal bark paintings from Port Keats are a vivid expression of the region’s cultural heritage. These paintings are created using natural materials, with the artists harvesting bark from specific trees and preparing it through a meticulous process. Natural ochres and pigments, sourced on country, are then used to craft intricate designs and narratives on the bark surface.
The art form is deeply intertwined with the spiritual and cultural life of the Wadeye community. Each painting serves as a visual storytelling medium, depicting dreamtime stories, ancestral beings and significant cultural events.
This particular collection on show at Mitchell Fine Art comprises 12 works that have been held in a private collection for about 30 years, although the pieces themselves are significantly older. Through these bark paintings, the artists of Port Keats continue to preserve and celebrate their heritage, offering a window into their world for contemporary audiences to appreciate and understand.
Peter Hudson’s exhibition is a fine companion piece to this show of barks and in his en plein air work, particularly the Tea Tree Bay paintings, he shares a love of landscape.
Hudson, 73, has engaged in regular painting expeditions with artists of note including Euan Macleod, and Joe Furlonger. He has been particularly influenced by a keen interest in Aboriginal Australian post-colonisation and has spent a lot of time in the North Tanami desert in Gurindji country after becoming intrigued with the famous 1966 Wave Hill walk-off (a strike over pay and conditions by 200 Gurindji stockmen, house servants and their families that lasted seven years).
As such, Hudson’s paintings and drawings have a deep connection to the natural world. Science, mythology, evolution and magic all blend to create a subject matter particular to him.
He has won several regional art prizes. His portrait of musician Paul Kelly was a finalist in the 2007 Archibald Prize. He is represented in the collections of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, National Portrait Gallery and Parliament House in Brisbane.
Hudson’s work is engaging because he is engaged with what he is painting and he conveys that beautifully. The title of his current exhibition, which continues until August 10, reflects his vision of the integration of the elements that he paints. He says that Tea Tree Bay, in particular, is a place made for painting.
“Everything is in the right place at the right time,” he says. “This is a gift for the landscape artist, as all the usual problems and decisions concerning design, tone, colour, what to include, what to leave out, have been taken care of.”
His Tea Tree Bay works were painted from a ridge beyond the popular walking track that hugs the beach there. The local rangers introduced him to a fire trail beyond the tourist track and from here he had a more private perspective.
There are other works of scenery around Noosa and one work, Red Boat – Tewantin, is particularly autobiographical. It’s something of a self-portrait, actually, even though the artist is nowhere in sight.
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There is, however, a drum in the boat rather than a person. Hudson happens to be a musician, a drummer, so that explains that … in case you see the painting and wonder what it’s all about. You’re welcome.
Right Place, Right Time – Peter Hudson and Wadeye Barks continue at Mitchell Fine Art, Fortitude Valley, until August 10.
mitchellfineartgallery.com
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