Oil on canvas
Measurements: 121cm by 91cm
When we visited Tasmania, I immediately hit the bitumen. Like a modern-day explorer, I use bitumen roads and highways to seek the natural beauty of Tasmania. However, whilst these highways traverse and float over the land acting like a magic carpet to take me wherever I wish, combined with today’s ever-growing civilisation, they tend to mask the real Tasmania.
Method:
This piece is initially painted in many layers of blues greens oranges and purple to represent the colours of natural Tasmania – it’s beautiful trees, mountains, lakes, rivers and sky.
This montage of colour is then covered in grey and white to represent today’s continual encroachment of buildings and development on the landscape. Grey and white signifies tin, concrete and steel, all dull uninspiring colours. Then over that, is painted harsh black to represent the bitumen.
Tasmania’s natural beauty is hidden beneath civilisation. As we traverse the bitumen to get where we want to go, we must delve deep to see the natural Tasmania. Look through the black, grey and white, it is there underneath, waiting to be discovered.
Susanne Bianchi's Art Diary 