'Farming Without Fences' Cooee Art, Sydney, NSW 2014 & Belconnen Arts Centre, ACT 2014
Helen Tiernan's paintings explore the Australian landscape through three elements: traditional Aboriginal, contemporary land management, and idealized depictions as seen in the colonial home interior. Her major inspiration has been Bill Gammage's revelatory book, The biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Through subtle controlled burning, working progressively from the edges, Australian Aborigines transformed the forest into grassland. A benign, yet stark equivalent to the torching, clear felling and bulldozers employed today. Tiernan's paintings are unpopulated by man. Only the imprint left by two quite different cultures can be seen.
#1: Colonial Wallpapers - wealth opportunity abundance
150 x 250 cm
SOLD to Parliament House collection, ACT
oil on canvas
#2: Tall Timbers
158 x 200 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#3: Fire Tracks, National Arboretum
110 x 170 cm
SOLD to Legislative Assembly, ACT
oil on canvas
#4: Parklands, after Sydney Long & Joseph Lycett
105 x 85 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#5: Under Construction
100 x 170 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#6: Deco-roo I
120 x 70 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#7: Deco-roo II
90 x 114 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#8: Abundance
105 x 90 x 1700 cm
$2,500.00
oil on canvas
#9: Patterns in the Land
40 x 158 cm
$2,500.00
oil on canvas
#10: Placement
90 x 90 cm
$2,400.00
oil on canvas
#11: Arboretum Canberra
105x85 cm
$2,400.00
oil on canvas
#12: Where Have All the Trees Gone I
50 x 150 cm
$2,200.00
oil on canvas
#13: Where Have All the Trees Gone II
50 x 150 cm
$2,200.00
oil on canvas
#14: Edges of the Forest, fire line
150 x 50 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#15: Edges of the Forest, cool fire
147 x 47 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#16: Edges of the Forest, after the burn
150 x 50 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#17: Edges of the Forest, burning
150 x 50 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#18: Edges of the Forest, transformed
147 x 47 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#19: Woodlands
105 x 88 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#20: Woodlands II
105 x 88 cm
$1,900.00
oil on canvas
#21: Tree Line
50 x 150 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#22: Inside Outside
30 x 105 cm
$1,300.00
oil on canvas
#23: Undergrowth
90 x 30 cm
$1,100.00
oil on canvas
#24: Where Grass Meets Forest
70 x 40 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#25: Re-clothed
102 x 40 cm
$950.00
oil on canvas
#26: On the Fringes
80 x 40 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#27: Mosaic Kangaroo
59 x 31 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#28: Overlaid Arboretum
40 x 30 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#29: Fire Tracks
20 x 61 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#30: Blakely Red Gum
30 x 30 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#24: The Surviving Gum
30 x 30 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#24: Woodlands
30 x 30 cm
SOLD
oil on canvas
#24: Entangled
30 x 30 cm
$475.00
oil on canvas