Sarah Willard Gray

Abstracting from the Cultural Landscape: a Sense of Place Sarah Willard Gray

In this book I examine the question as to how my creative work is informed and inspired by a sense of place through a political and historical engagement with the environment. This political engagement was created by my heartfelt desire to bring to the attention of local people the environmental threat that was being placed on two special historical areas where I live on the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. Of extreme importance was the need to protect this land, sacred to the Gundungurra Indigenous people, from development. The land in question was the early 19th century village of Bong Bong, the first European settlement on the Southern Highlands that contains both indigenous and early settlement artifacts. Through an engagement with the cultural/social history and current politics of the environment I have achieved a body of work that reflects a very personal 'sense of place'- a clear working process which translates well to the canvas and page. This book also contains photographs of my paintings and monotypes that are abstractions from this historic landscape.