1993 Heroes - Artists Notes
Artists Statement 1993
Australian Heroes
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“I started painting the images of my outback experiences as they are seen externally in the dreamy Australian way (our secret heroes). In uncovering I discovered an ignorance, a very big living myth, a world in a time warp, where theres been no review or inspection of the methods of behaviour on the country for far too long.
The ways have become a religion in themselves. The new Australia’s roots, its skeleton and the skeleton is only that; I found no tender rich blood cursing through the shell. No sensitivity to the complexity of the big harsh outback of Australia. Only a sort of ‘healthy fear’.
You could walk past a flat plain with a few scattered rocks and think it was hell. We have constantly harangued people who come to our country for not adopting ‘our’ Australian way of life. Boo to the ‘dago’s’ and ‘whatever’s’ up the street for still eating baklava and practising weird bearded church going rituals. But we’re the ones who didn’t adapt to the country’s way of life. We got away with it because we had bigger weapons than the people already here when we arrived. And like the great red, yellow or purple peril, a culture that consists of ghostly figures painted on cave walls and baby spirits in rock pools was far too primitive for the likes of people who worship men who walked on water, produced fish from an empty bucket, bought an apple from a snake and were conceived from a virgin.
Helen Norton
Image shown above: Cape Fear Corgies – 92x122cm Oil on Canvas 1993
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