Sandra Blackburne’s solo ‘Rivers’ exhibition is inspired by a series of trips made in 2022, 2023, and 2024 to Corongoro Creek (NSW) and the Mossman and Hodgkinson rivers in North and Western Queensland. This exhibition is my response to these places. The stark white of the slender trees against the dark green of forested hills at Hat Head; the cold running waters of the Mossman Gorge in the tropical rain forest; the still waters of the inland rivers as they follow the massive escarpment of interior gorges. The paintings depict a series of opposites: the solidity of the land contrasts with the translucency of the river, an interrelationship between land and water.
I see the river as a metaphor for life, for a journey. It flows through differing spaces and times while nurturing life along its banks and streams, as the paintings ‘Where the Barra hide’ and ‘Lagoon and Waterbirds’ suggest. However, it can also represent the ever-changing nature of human experience, or even the passage of time. In this way, the floods in ‘Flooded Forest’ and the times of drought in ‘Riverbed’ become a metaphor representing the ups and downs of life experience.
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