Born and raised between the iconic Australian artist colonies of Heide and Montsalvat, on the semi-rural fringes of metropolitan Melbourne, acrylic painter and draftswoman Rebecca Long has inhaled and interpreted a lifetime of visual inspiration from the Australian landscape and iconography. The resultant work nods to custodians of Australian art such as Boyd, Percival and Whiteley (and indeed the more contemporary Baldessin) while imagining a unique relationship with the personified characteristics of one’s natural environment. As always, primarily painted with fingers rather than brushes, this series depicts an organic, paradoxical harshness and austerity and contrasting richness, and ontological queries doubting the difference of plant, beast and human. No matter where. For those familiar with Rebecca’s work, it is a clear departure or progression from previous works. There is perhaps a risk in the specificity of identifying place. Or perhaps not. In her words, ‘Our environment shapes us as we shape our environment. The beauty is in finding and realising that connection.’ Or indeed the realisation of a disconnect or lack of recognition, which may be equally elucidating. ‘I cannot imagine Berlin with snow needing to be shovelled from the front door to go to work, but to do so presents a new perspective on a world I thought I knew. And that is expanding and magical.’
