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Video An artist's view of wetlands

Alison Middleton

Landscape artist John Wolseley immerses himself in Top End wetlands.


CLAIRE MACKAY, PRESENTER: He's well known for his paintings of the Australian desert. But in recent years, the landscape artist, John Wolseley, has turned his attention to wetlands. He's in the Top End researching his latest work in preparation for a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

JOHN WOLSELEY, ARTIST: I'm visiting the Territory as I have done for the last 30 years nearly every year. I just adore it, so I spend a lot of my life just wandering around various corners.

ALISON MIDDLETON, REPORTER: Artist John Wolseley immerses himself in the landscapes that he so lovingly paints.

JOHN WOLSELEY, ARTIST: Landscape painting is slightly unfashionable now, although it's coming back and the reason it's coming back I think is that we're suddenly realising that we may have damaged the earth so badly and the landscape, the land is changing, and we're losing so many species.

ALISON MIDDLETON: On the calm waters of Lake Bennett south of Darwin, he's drawing the inspiration for his latest work.

JOHN WOLSELEY, ARTIST: My primary interest has been looking at the amazing plant forms. Over there there's about five different nymphia lilies - each one with different extraordinary shapes to them.

ALISON MIDDLETON: The plants he collects are laid on paper, before watercolour is added to capture their likeness.

JOHN WOLSELEY, ARTIST: I think the most wonderful thing about painting and probably the other art forms is that when you're in full flow you feel part of the universe - at the best of times it's very, very euphoric and wonderfully exciting.

ALISON MIDDLETON: The landscape painter is in the midst of creating a series of giant artworks on Australia's wetlands for the National Gallery of Victoria.

ANGUS CAMERON, NOMAD ART: Sometimes I think his works are like fantasy worlds but they're not - they're products of acute observation and knowledge.

ALISON MIDDLETON: John Wolseley's previous work is on show at Darwin's Nomad Gallery to coincide with his Top End trip.

ANGUS CAMERON, NOMAD ART: He's not a painter that paints the grand vistas like the Streetons and Roberts and so forth in the past. He really has turned the landscape inside out and he looks at the landscape from the inside, from this amazingly intimate perspective.

GLENN WIGHTMAN, NT DEPT. OF LAND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: John also has this uncanny ability to find biodiversity - plants and animals that are artistically interesting. So he does them very accurately so from a scientific point of view it's wonderful.

ALISON MIDDLETON: Glenn Wightman records Aboriginal knowledge of plants and animals. His research and the traditions of Indigenous artists are reflected in John Wolseley's work.

GLENN WIGHTMAN, NT DEPT. OF LAND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: What John really does is tease out science and put it into a medium that people who don't think they're scientists can actually understand.

ALISON MIDDLETON: After drying overnight, his work-in-progress is ready for inspection. The plants are swept away to prepare the art for detailed drawing. It's just one step in creating work that captures the beauty of nature.

ANGUS CAMERON, NOMAD ART: There's lots of mining and disruption and all sorts of things in the landscape. Here's someone who's very quietly and beautifully depicting the complexities and wonder of where we live. He's a wonderful researcher, he's a wonderful observer of nature, he's a philosopher and he brings all of those elements to his work.

JOHN WOLSELEY, ARTIST: There's a part of me which feels that this is the most important thing at the moment and that keeping ecosystems going, I find it so beautiful and fascinating myself that I think I want to tell everyone about it and say "Help, help. Look, look - we're going the wrong way".

CLAIRE MACKAY: That's all we have time for this week.

7.30 NT