lorraine biggs

resilience

10 august - 8 september 2007

• press release
• price list

"Over the past five years I have experienced a series of traumatic fires and this year I felt compelled to explore the phenomenon"

"First the historic local cinema and theatre known as Todd’s Hall burnt to the ground and this was a great blow to our community on Tasmania’s north-east coast because the hall was the cultural heart of the district.

Not long after, I had a studio fire which destroyed a great deal of my work and materials... so there was my creative working space suddenly black and devastated.

And then, in December 2006, the coastal area where I live was consumed by a huge bushfire that swept through hundreds of hectares. I watched as the fire roared down from the wooded highlands behind me and swept over our heads to the sand hills by the ocean. Several homes were lost and vast tracts of bushland were incinerated. Much wildlife was killed or maimed.

As I watched the inferno from my verandah I took my camera and began to document the event. A wall of flame burned along the ridges of the western foothills while great smoke clouds began to surge out to sea. The sky above me was full of fire and it was a terrifying time. Radio reports were telling people in the nearest hamlet, four miles south, to “evacuate to the beach immediately, do not get in your cars, just run straight to the beach”. We were hearing reports of the loss of homes and cars before, suddenly, all power and phones, including mobiles, were cut off. That was when things got really scary as we were literally in the dark.

As the fire passed over, and ash and soot descended upon us, I continued to document the drama of the fire. It was too awe-inspiring to let pass without record. Burning embers and long pieces of burning bark were landing everywhere, but at that point we could do nothing more to prepare our property or to defend the house against the approaching front. If the flames reached us, our only option was to run down to the sea; in every other direction we were cut off by fire. So I stood on the deck and took photographs.

In retrospect I can see that great beauty can arise out of such devastation. The pyrocumulus clouds formed by the fire front itself were extraordinary. The towering clusters of thick smoke that rose above us brought home the enormity of the event. Their patterns and colours were sublime. Rich red and orange forms, reflected directly from the fire itself, swirled in formation with the mauve and grey soot laden clouds. It was exhilarating to witness the sheer spectacle of it, in all its shocking but sublime beauty. The sky itself was alight and fireballs catapulted out from the smoke clouds, igniting the bush. After they had burned through, they left in their wake a heavy pall of soot and before long we were in a dark and strangely quiet place.

In the aftermath of this fire, the worst coastal bushfire in eighty years, I was amazed at the resilience of nature and of people. This sense of wonder, and of hope, began to infuse and inform my work. I wanted to find a way to express this through the visual image and I began to focus on the bush recovery as a metaphor for our own resilience. After each incident, both small and large, I have been surprised at our powers of recovery. The toughness of the Australian bush and its people never ceases to amaze me.

In this series of works I have explored the intensity of the fire itself; the heat, the smoke, the ash and the fear. In the days after the fire the air is acrid and harsh, and wherever you look the landscape is black and grey. It feels as if all is lost. But then the first signs of hope appear, small green shoots that spring from out of the black trunks. You realize that under that blackened crust of devastation there is still life. The rains come, and soon the first epicormic shoots of new growth, lime green and crimson, begin to bud. It is joyous and uplifting. For days I drove through the scorched hills, inspired by a vision of blackened trunks covered now in luminous green shoots. A new kind of beauty is born. The resilience of nature is triumphant. Life goes on."

Lorraine Biggs 2007

resilience #1-11

pastel + charcoal on washi rice paper

153 x 46cm [each]

2007

$880 [each]

fire #1

acrylic on canvas

76 x 66cm

2007

$1,300

fire #2

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm

2007

$550

fire #3

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm

2007

$550

new life #1

acrylic on canvas

76 x 66cm

2007

$1,300

new life #2

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm

2007

$550

new life #3

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm

2007

$550 sold

bushfire #1-5

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm [each]

2007

$550 [each] sold #2

blue gums #1-5

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm [each]

2007

$550 [each] sold #1, #2, #4, #5

after the fire #1

acrylic on canvas

76 x 66cm

2007

$1,300

after the fire #2

acrylic on canvas

76 x 66cm

2007

$1,300 sold

after the fire #3

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm

2007

$550

after the fire #4

acrylic on canvas

31 x 31cm

2007

$550

soot descending

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

19 x 29cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed

soot + fire

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

19 x 22cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed

fire passing over

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

15 x 29cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed

sky on fire

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

26 x 19cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed

pyrocumulus

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

19 x 20cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed

fireballs over hills

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

19 x 23cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed

pole + fires

edition 1 of 9

c type photograph on 200gsm fuji paper

19 x 29cm

2006

$340 unframed/$450 framed