Oil on canvas. 102 × 96 cm
‘Kakadu in Flood (numbers 1-15)’
This is part of a series of paintings I did after visiting Kakadu National Park in northern Australia, shortly after the monsoon rains (‘the wet’) had passed. While there I fell in love with the extraordinary beauty of the landscape. The place seemed to be humming with the mix of fish, bird, and animal life, while the reflective colours in the flooded woodland was just captivating. I felt I couldn’t get enough of it. At the same time there was the ever-present tension between the beauty and calmness of the water and the danger hidden in the water: crocodiles that moved out of the river estuaries across the landscape with the spreading water. I sketched while there and took photos back home to the studio where the series just flowed out of me.
