Veronika Wild

It's easy to lose yourself in David Keeling's "regrowth" forest which is part of a larger work You could say that this week I have been flat out like a lizard drinking, to use a typically Australian expression that means “I have been really busy,” not that I have ever seen a lizard drinking. No chance to get out into the bush, but I did manage to see a couple of exhibitions, both at least vaguely related to nature The painting and the installation are meant to be viewed together   Not so long ago few people had access to photography. Now that photography no longer requires hugely expensive equipment – especially if you have a smartphone, nor darkrooms, nor film purchases and development costs, let alone extensive knowledge of exposure time, film speed and shutter speeds, almost anyone can provide accurate representations of objects in nature or elsewhere which was once the preserve of the artist. This leaves the artist free to bring his or her im...

The John Glover Track - Knocklofty, above Hobart I have been running in my new walking boots on the hills around Hobart.   Knocklofty is the one nearest to me and overlooks the town rather nicely. Were it not for the great bulk of Mt. Wellington/Kunanyi (1271 m) stealing the limelight, it would be an important feature in its own right. The upside is that it is easily accessible and offers pleasant views of the river and the city from a less Godlike perspective – you can make out the detail of individual houses, a gorgeously flowering magnolia, a man on a bicycle, as well as the blue ribbon of river curling away to the south. One of several old quarries   In the earliest years of white settlement in 1804 it was known as “Woodman’s Hill” and was a kind of wild commons where people gathered firewood, hunted possums and grazed a few cattle.   Much of the sandstone for the colony’s early buildings and even those in Melbourne was also cut from here. In 1942...