Jan 10, 2011, Daedalus




















January 10, 2011, I was in Toowoomba doing an art course in South's Rugby Club house at the top of the Toowoomba range. It had reained solidly all week. The teeming torential rain was eroding the muddy tracks from the club house to the road; so, to avoid getting bogged, I decided to go home at 2 0'clock.

Unbeknown to me, I had left it too late!! The roads were covered feet deep in rich muddy water. Red water spurted up from the drains unable to cope with the mass of water. Streets were impassable. Worse still, there was no way I could cross what literally looked like a tsunami surge rushing through the middle of Toowoomba city.

Flood watching was a delight in my childhood in Maryborough. There I grew up with floods, frequent floods. Floods came up slowly. You watched the waters slowly creep up the river banks and over the road. Slowly, as interesting things floated down the river in its wake and snakes and centipedes took refuge at your feet.

On January 10, people stood around looking stunned at the maelstrom whilst drivers went backwards and forwards, not knowing where to go, what to do. I was stranded with seemingly no hope of ever getting to the other side.

It took me two and a half hours to complete what was normally a 15 minute trip. Then, I saw the television coverage. I had been traumatised before; what I saw was unbelievable.

DAEDULUS

Artists throughout the ages have delighted in depicting the drama of Icarus's failure to follow the advice of his father, Daedalus. His son, Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he fell to his death in the sea.

In my mind, the tragedy of the death of a son in any circumstances, the effect on family and the community in general, is overwhelmingly traumatic. Loss of home and security exacerbate the trauma. Ripples of such calamity resound throughout the community. Such loss happened in Toowoomba and in Grantham that January 10.

I have made reference in this painting to the very recognizable "Great Wave" of Hokida, a Japanese printmaker who in his turn had taken his style from European art.

His wave was not a Tsunami. Neither was the water originating at the top of the Toowoomba range that January 10.

I continued to paint the trauma I had seen and imagined.

Ironically, soon after I had finshed this painting, Japan suffered a huge Tsunami. More people may have perished; more homes lost; more damage been done; but it was no less traumatic in Grantham to see a 3 metre wave coming out of nowhere and rushing at you across the fields that January day as it was for me, sitting in my car isolated and vulnerable watching water violently teeming through the middle of Toowoomba.

Daedalus, I suffer with you.






























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