“Here perhaps, more than anywhere, humanity had had a chance to make a fresh start … Nothing in this strange country seemed to bear the slightest resemblance to the outside world: it was so primitive, so lacking in greenness, so silent, so old … A kind of trance was in the air, a sense of awakening infinitely delayed. In the midsummer heat the land scarcely breathed, but the alien white man, walking through the grey and silent trees, would have the feeling that someone or something was waiting and listening.” Alan Moorehead’s Cooper’s Creek
“Like the 18th and 19th century romantic artists Fiona Somerville is fascinated by the idea of the ruin. These ruins however are not the grand castles of Britain and France, but rather the detritus from our more recent past. The remnants of shacks, humpy’s and dongas lying scattered about the land provide her with an endless source of subject matter. There are no people in these pictures but their presence is always felt. History, memory and observation provide the bones of the story. The only sure things are the eternal flies buzzing around in the midday heat” – Fiona Somerville
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