Brett Weir
In the same way that time will leave its mark on the areas of raw copper in these works through the process of oxidation, eventually becoming the luminous green of an old church spire, these paintings are a record of the stretch of farmland between Pakenham & Drouin, Victoria on a December evening, 2012 as seen fleetingly from the train window.
The metamorphoses of prime farmland into the ever-expanding sprawl of suburbia is the second radical alteration this land has undergone over the last two centuries. The early settlers & the farmers who followed them irreparably altered it through clearing & the introduction of European agriculture. Now, resultant of our population growth, & perhaps an insatiable need to grow & consume, our rural landscapes are being butchered & sectioned into vast, anonymous stretches of suburbia.