RURAL PAINTINGS
description
Christine Porter makes artwork - paintings and etchings - about the sheep, wool and cattle industries of rural Australia. Her paintings concentrate on two main subjects: the agricultural architecture of the wool industry (the shearing sheds and woolsheds of western New South Wales and Queensland) and the sheep and cattle of those places.
background
"there's a shed up the back you might be interested in"
Christine has been making artwork about shearing sheds since 1984, when she was working as a governess near Charters Towers in North Queensland. Each year since, she has made artwork about two or three rural properties that form an image and ideas-base for both her painting and printmaking practice. Working as a "serial artist in residence" she has been invited to rural properties all over Queensland and New South Wales (so far) to create bodies of artwork that become like a portrait of the place at that time - projects usually involving a number of paintings of the shearing sheds as well as other buildings. how to commission an artwork or project
artist statement
In 2009 Christine’s painting Storm 2009 (pictured - acrylic on board, 15x15cm, corporate collection) was selected as a finalist for the Country Energy Prize for Landscape Painting. This was the artist statement from that painting:
This shearing shed is typical of many that I make artwork about. It was built at a time when the sheep industry carried Australia on its back: when our wool warmed the world. Land use and markets have changed. Often, as the artist, I am the last one in before the bulldozers. My work describes the final shearing, the flock replaced by herd, the loss of respect for an industry that placed the Australian economy on the world stage. I meet people from the cities or coastal fringes and hear their mis-information and mis-understandings about agriculture and grazing. It is a gradual and inevitable amnesia that describes the true balance of power in a country that still needs to feed itself.
This work is not deliberately nostalgic. Its about real people, real places. It’s about how, despite those lifestyles being trivialised by mass media and hijacked by tourism, for many Australians this is home.
Christine Porter 2009
recent painting series: Australian shearing sheds
| on the banks of the Gwydir 2012 |
 |
A series of paintings about an historic sheep property on the banks of the Gwydir River east of Moree in northern NSW. | |
| tankstand 2011-12 |
 |
Sometimes a series of paintings starts out being about the whole place, and ends up largely being about one element of it. This was one such project. In a part of the country less about wide open spaces and more about the timbered country it was carved from, the tanks and their timber tank stands were the main inspiration for this series of paintings. image: storm coming 2011 watercolour on paper 14x15cm |
|
| the North Star project 2011 |
 |
Christine's major painting project for 2011, this subjects of this series of paintings were drawn from four properties in the North Star area of New South Wales. image: gable view 2011 watercolour on paper approximately 50x45cm |
|
| landscape 2011 |
|
This is a series of re-configured paintings celebrating "the landscape" by accentuating the landscape format in paintings not obviously of that genre. image: the board 2011 watercolour on paper |
|
 |
A series of paintings of one of the properties on the Mole River, west of Tenterfield. Part of this project was shown in the 2010 exhibition Down the Mole image: shed interior 2010 watercolour on paper (private collection) |
||
|
2009 |
 |
This property sits overlooking the Dumaresq river which is the border of New South Wales and Queensland west of Tenterfield. Although not technically on the Mole River, it was exhibited as part of Down the Mole exhibition as well. image: makers Bagshaw Mile End 2009 watercolour on paper 14x15cm |
|
|
small views |
|
These are very small paintings: from 5.4 x 5.8cm that isolate the core part of the pictorial narrative. This series was exhibited in the 2009 exhibition remembering how to fly + unframed at Fairway Studios in Goondiwindi. image: steps 2009 watercolour on paper size (collection of the artist) | |
 |
In 2008 and 2009, Christine was privilaged to create artwork about two properties in the Morven district. Shearing shed near Morven, and North of Morven were both projects that followed the usual trajectory of these rural projects - images about the shed, its interior, the smaller sheds nearby, objects, yards image: a bunch of horseshoes 2009 watercolour on paper size (private collection) | ||
| north of Morven 2008-2009 |
 |
image: woolstencil 2009 watercolour on paper 14x15cm |
sheep and cattle
| (Australian) sheep and cattle 2009-11 |
 |
an ongoing series of sheep and cattle paintings image: born on the road 2009 watercolour on paper 14x15cm (private collection) |
| British sheep breeds 2007-9 |
 |
a series of paintings of some of the different breeds of sheep Christine encountered on her MacGregor Fellowship trip to the UK in 2007. Paintings from this series were exhibited in Australia and Scotland in 2008. image: Herdwick 2008 watercolour on paper 14x15cm (private collection UK) |