Corresponding Latitude Statement:

The rivers and creeks of North West Queensland are primarily dry beds throughout most of the year and they only run with water in the wet season when the Monsoon rains have fallen, perhaps a month or two in the year, but not every year. The Monsoon arrives in Northern Australia after India and in North West Queensland it does not always bring significant rain. My drawing of the dry creeks and rivers are in broken lines of blue and green. The green could be the trees that line the creeks. The broken blue the water that is intermittent. The substrate of plastic is an obviously synthetic substance and for the drawing this places the rivers in an artificial environment controlled by the artist. The control extends to the viewer through the acts of walking over the precious and unstable lines of rivers. Even though these are drawn with permanent markers, another synthetic material, they will start to disappear over the duration of the exhibition/installation due to pedestrian traffic. Underneath the plastic are images of the eroded Buddha in different stylised interpretations. These are digital prints taken from images of the Buddha near DaTong in Northern China. The country in this part of China is very dry and threatened by the same environmental hardship faced by India and Australia. The eroded Buddha images should be seen through the plastic but the images are also precious and are protected by a line of earth. This line demarcates where the viewer should stop and not walk. There is always an interaction between respect for the earth and the spiritual interpretations people give to the elements. The installation Ephemeral Beings of eroded sacred images and dry rivers on plastic is about this interaction and our environment.