FARMER SWANS
By Beth Gibbings
THE ARTIST
Beth Gibbings graduated from Sydney College of the Arts and subsequently studied digital imaging in Devonport, Tasmania. Since then she has been working in a range of media, including oil painting. She has been represented in a retrospective of political posters, and included in selective exhibitions such as Tasmania’s Material Girl, and the Eutick Memorial Still Life competition. She exhibits regularly and currently her ceramic work is part of a group exhibition at Nexus Gallery, Bellingen.
THE ARTWORK
Much of my painting time is spent working in still life, where there is a close focus, often on the domestic. This image has as its background a close-up from one of my still life paintings, incorporated with a photograph of a farmer turned soldier, taken at a training camp in England in 1916 around the time when he met and married his wife. In the middle of the photo was a faint thumbprint, an intimate trace from a time of war.
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