River Red Gum, Mark Hewitt, 1996
Paper, gelatin silver, pencil, acrylic, wood, aerial photograph, topographical map. 930W x 880mmH

There are so many layers to Country. River Red Gum is a visual depiction of those layers. A piece completed after doing a course on aboriginal spirituality with Dr Anne Patel Gray. When this was first exhibited A Aboriginal elder from a people who’s land covers the flinders ranges came up to me a said he knows that tree.
This tree can be found by a walk thorough Sacred Canyon in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. You climb out and on a bank in the middle with a creeek bed running either side is where this River Red Gum is to be found.

There are many layers it illustrate beauty in this piece. Western ways – photography – collage & drawing – aerial map & photo pinpointing tree. Indigenous ways – the frame representing connecting between heaven & earth – Song line – campfire
Each layer in itself is beautiful & together is a rich beauty.

This country has multiple layers of beauty. Scripture like our country has multiple layers With different ways of seeing. A Christian Aboriginal theology, enables another way of seeing.