West of Moree 2025 - Christine Porter

Watercolour paintings of the shearing shed and landscape on a sheep and farming property west of Moree, in north west NSW – an area famed for its black soil plains, fine wool and warm summers. And by warm I mean hot.
This body of work is made up of a series of larger paintings that explore the grandeur and history of the shed, built in the mid-1930’s, and in constant use by the same family to this day, and thirty-two small works, snippets, that notice the small stories that make up the larger view of this place. In this case, the snippets were collated as two large works framed as a pair.

Note from the Artist

This work was completed May 2025, almost three years to the day after the initial research visit happened. At that time, shortly after the terrible floods in Lismore, the trip was a welcome reprieve from the mud. My travelling buddy and I stayed on-site in the shearers’ quarters that visit, allowing more time in and around the shed. The resultant paintings are two bodies of work.
Thanks go to the family who invited me and patiently waited for the flood drama to abate. There’s something very special about spending time at a site that is of significance to a family, then re-interpreting that place for them and future generations. Thank you so much for the trust you put in me, and the patience you’ve showed waiting for it to arrive. It’s very humbling.
Christine Porter, west of Moree, May 2025

The Main Project

Eighteen watercolour paintings, on paper, ranging in size from 16cm squared to full sheet – 76x56cm. The best studio paintings evolve from time on site exploring the nuances of the place. These two photos are of my field set-up.

"Found"

THERE IS ALWAYS SO MUCH TO SEE

Imagine this.
I’m on site.
There’s the shearing shed, and the landscape. I’ve spent time inside and I know that late this afternoon the sun will be coming in through the skylights just where I want it to, for maximum impact. I look down – it’s sensible to watch where you’re stepping – . There’s a fragment of white crockery half visible in the dirt. Near it is an unidentifiable piece of rusty metal, then I see an old eartag, a bent nail and so it goes on. I realise that the stories of this place are held not only in the grand vistas of the architecture and workspaces, they are also held in the snippets that make up the second project within this project. Now I see they are distilled in each small object found.

This is not the first major work I’ve created using the remnant found objects. Others have included the “Sense of Place” series which was a combination of drawings with the found objects attached.

This work is larger than a full sheet – it’s approx 84cm high and 40cm wide. It is constructed as such to mimic a scroll, rather than the landscape.

It becomes like a guessing game, identifying the provenance or indeed the identity of the objects, in this piece. But perhaps that’s the thing with history – meaning changes as time passes: making it less obvious, but no less beautiful.