Painting from experience, Richard presents a series of reflective observations from a dawn flight over Kati Thanda floodwaters (Lake Eyre) in 2019 and sunsets over Port Phillip bay during the 2020 lockdown. This body of work responds to the awe inspiring quiet of the moment when focusing on these vast horizons. 

 Months after a destructive tropical cyclone in far north Queensland floodwaters found their way via ancient river systems to Kati Thanda – Lake Eyre. We took a dawn flight from William Creek to see this rare event with our own eyes. Our brief view of the lake from a small plane through tiny windows was enriched by the sunrise on the horizon and the rare smattering of rapidly dispersing clouds hovering over and reflected in the shallow salt encrusted water below us.

Then in lockdown and curfew 2020 in our St Kilda flat, the sunset over water became a constant as we look towards the west. The quiet vastness of the distant horizons in both South Australia and Port Philip Bay found a connection for me as I worked through drawings and then paintings for this body of work.  

RICHARD J MANNING