Hiraeth
|heer - eyeth|
n. (Welsh) A spiritual longing for a home which maybe never as. Nostalgia for ancient places to which we cannot return. It is the echo of the lost places of our soul’s past and our grief from them. It is in the wind, and the rocks, and the waves. It is nowhere and it is everywhere.
This piece is very close to my heart.
When I talk about the feeling of never quite being at home, I imagine my mother feels this the most… she grew up in a village in rural Saskatchewan and experienced a lot of loss before turning 18. She then moved across the world to Australia where she met my father. Long story short she decided to live the rest of her life 12872 km away from home.
This painting was done using acrylic on the surface of an old long saw. In the painting itself I have included some key imagery which I will touch on working from the left side of the painting to the right.
In this composition, the trees are meticulously arranged in a uniform, linear fashion, reminiscent of the typical layout of trees found on the windswept prairies. These trees have been thoughtfully planted to serve various practical purposes, such as demarcating boundaries, providing screens, and acting as windbreaks.
In the foreground, a vibrant red prairie lily, the emblematic floral symbol of Saskatchewan, commands attention. It stands as a poignant tribute to the province's natural beauty and rich heritage. Nestled behind the prairie lily, the imposing figure of the Tompkins grain elevator emerges. Once a vital hub for loading trains, it now stands as a melancholic relic of a bygone era, bearing witness to the passage of time and changing landscapes.
Completing the scene, the background features a distinctive mountain range known locally as "the bench." The mountains' flat, expansive silhouette contrasts with the surrounding prairie, offering an intriguing and striking focal point that adds depth and complexity to the composition.
Here we can see the two worlds collide at the centre with a road sign that reads 12872km to home, in both directions. In very fine print at the top it says EST. 1994, the year my parents where married. The flat top of The Bench flows into the jagged Dawson Range. The scene is depicted with a beautiful sun set that the Central Queensland are known for. Warmth radiates from the painting with tones of yellow and orange occupying the majority of the image to relay the temperature difference between the two locations. A Queenslander home is partially shaded by a bottle tree, fenced from the cattle paddock and followed by a Hills Hoist, adorned with a green work shirt. The trees are more sporadic in this part of the world and the cattle can be seen sauntering in the background, towards a southern cross windmill atop a ring tank.
