Courtesy: the artist and Northern Rivers Community Gallery, Ballina, NSW.

Sue Davidson developed a deep love of the Australian bush at a young age, feeling connected to the land and at peace in nature.

Her choice of red dirt as a medium creates a dialogue between the artist, the viewer and the land, the same soil in which four generations of her family are buried. Davidson’s desire to immerse herself in the desert and connect to the landscape has never left her and she finds herself constantly drawn to the wide-open spaces.

Her art practice has continued to be informed by the colours of the Australian outback, in the past using terracotta clay as a base for wall pieces and now red oxidised soil as paint. She is challenged by the concept of land ownership through colonisation: whose land is it after all and does anybody really own this red dirt?

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