These works were created in collaboration with Gillian Scott. As part of a large development by Nat Properties Campari is the latest and largest bar / restaurant in down town Toowoomba. Nat Properties is run by Rodger and Nigel Telford. Nigel Telford “When we were developing the Campari concept we wanted to give a sense of difference. We saw work from Ben and Gillian’s artist residency project at the Boyce Gardens in Toowoomba which had a really different feel to it. Ben suggested that as the remnant rainforest at the Boyce Garden was a vine forest perhaps a work featuring these vines would be suitable. The project went from there. Ben put a lot of work into designing the works to fit the envisioned mood that we were looking to create. We are very happy with the results and get a lot of comments on the works. It’s a great outcome”.
Anne Knoblock
I met Ben when he was posting some works at the post office. I had a big empty wall and thought he might come up with something interesting. What he did come up with was very impressive and just perfect for the space. So many people comment on it. It has such an interesting story behind it. Ben says ”In the creation of this piece I was heavily influenced by ancient Chinese landscape art. In approaching the creation of a work on such a large scale I chose a topic that I believed mirrored the space. The work speaks of the grandiose elements of landscape referencing the other theme of the work which is deep time and evolution. I have used relatively local material to construct the work and because of the number of details I have listed them:
All of the fossils featured are Australian and range from the Devonian to the Cretaceous. The lake, which is central to the work, is Crows Nest Falls. The mountains that surround the lake are the Green Mountains. The plants were collected at Noosa and in the Green Mountains.
The waterfalls are from the Blue Pool walk at the Green Mountains. The bee, flower and lizard in the far left corner were taken in the Lockyer Valley and the fossil just above them, that looks a bit like a crocodile, is a 2m Triassic amphibian that was dug up in St Peters brick pit in Sydney, we call it Paracyclotosaurus.
Above this is a seed-fern, Pachypteris crassa and in the Bottom right corner of the left panel is a Cretaceous Kronosaur from Winton Qld. The dragon fly, middle left panel, is from Noosa National Park. I used a photo of Mount Warning, seen in the right panel, to create the orange silhouette mountain, middle/far right. The Sunset, top middle panel, was taken from the hill at Toowoomba State High School. The fossil plant above the white flowers, middle panel right, is the Agathis Jurassic, a 175 million year old Kauri Pine.
With the exception of Mount Warning, I made the mountains by compressing a photo that I took of undulating hills in the Gold Coast hinterland. The colour scheme for the work was simply an aesthetic choice; there was no conceptual reason that dictated the use of these colours.
Regan Wilson
Regan is a lawyer from Best Wilson family law. “When I saw the Ned series I really fell in love with them. I purchased two for my office and they absolutely make the space come alive. I get a lot of comments on them. They really are great I love them”.
Campari Bar
These works were created in collaboration with Gillian Scott. As part of a large development by Nat Properties Campari is the latest and largest bar/restaurant in down town Toowoomba. Nat Properties is run by Rodger and Nigel Telford. Nigel Telford “When we were developing the Campari concept we wanted to give a sense of difference. We saw work from Ben and Gillian’s artist residency project at the Boyce Gardens in Toowoomba which had a really different feel to it. Ben suggested that as the remnant rainforest at the Boyce Garden was a vine forest perhaps a work featuring these vines would be suitable. The project went from there. Ben put a lot of work into designing the works to fit the envisioned mood that we were looking to create. We are very happy with the results and get a lot of comments on the works. It’s a great outcome”.
Jenny Borton
After seeing Ben’s stunning exhibition of paintings and limited edition fine art digital prints on the theme of landscapes through deep time I knew that this was the artist I was looking for to create something special for my home. Ben has told me this work was about the experience of multiple perspectives in the Green Mountains, Binna Burra. When looking at I feel that I’m within the rainforest and on top of a mountain at the same time. I know Ben has a passion for this region in particularly the Nothofagus forests because of their Gondwanan ancestry. I think Ben really is the most important artist dealing with the theme of deep time in Australia, I’m sure he’s the most knowledgeable.
Linda Baker
I just love this work, Ben created it about his residency at Hill End. Plentiful King Parrots feed on European Blossoms in Donald Friend's garden as the Regent Honey Eater (bottom left) moves towards extinction. It also features a number of Bens botanical studies from Hill End. Ben tells me the Regent Honey Eater which is a highly endangered species in Australia. An underlying theme of a lot of Bens work in his natural history aesthetic is adaptation and extinction.
Linda Baker 2
Here are two more of my favourites, just yesterday I had some friends around who commented on them. The work on the left is one of Bens “Landscape and Atmosphere” works. It depicts Captain Cook arriving in Botany Bay. The work on the right is called “Grey Ash of the Daintree” you can find in “Botanical Studies”
Notable moments in the evolution of birds in China
This work titled “Notable moments in the evolution of birds in China” was sold to a private collector. From left to right along the top 1) Lesser Adjutant Stork - Leptoptilos javanicus2) Ruddy Crake - Porzana fusca3) Silver-Eared Leiothrix - Leiothrix argentauris4) White-Naped Crane - Grus vipio5) Emerald Dove - Chalophaps indica6) Chinese Bamboo Partridge - Bambusicola thoracica7) Large White-Rumped Swift - Apus pacificus8) Cinnamon Sparrow - Passer rutilans 9) Slender-Billed Scimitar Babbler10) Black-Faced Laughing Thrush - Garrulax affinis11) Large Egret - Egretta alba12) Red-Billed Blue Magpie - Urocissa erythrorhyncha13) Crested Serpent Eagle - Spilornis cheela14) Siberian Blue Robin - Luscinia cyane15) Rusty Cheeked Schimitar Babbler - Pomatorhinus erythrogenys Caudipteryx(far left) - primitive feathered, fast runner, flightless, Sinosauropteryx (far right) - filament may have evolved for insulation, or display, fast runner, flightless Sketch of the general structure of the modern wing (top middle)
Hill End Gold Pty Ltd
This work was sold to a geologist at Hill End Gold Pty Ltd. It was created in consultation with the Geologists at Hill End Gold Pty Ltd
Broken Hill City Council
This work titled “If So Then How?” was sold to someone from the Broken Hill City Council. This work overlays the geological signs of ancient events that took places in the Australian interior with drawings of Broken Hills native flora, relevant fossils and imagery that displays the suburban dream that we call the outback. The top strip displays a chronology of fossils from the Permian to the Pleistocene. The bottom strip displays native plants from Broken Hill. The top left displays the Tasman Line which divides Precambrian Australia from the more recent rock formations of the eastern seaboard. The red blotches mark out rock in “the outback” which displays Cambrian volcanic activity. The 2 circular blue dots display the approximate position Broken Hill in the Precambrian (top left) and the Cambrian. The very pale blotches next to the top blue dot mark out some areas which yield Precambrian glacial sediments. It is believed that a glacier that extended from Mount Painter to Broken Hill between 610 – 575 Ma. The bottom right image displays an eclecticism of ideas including plays on cross cultural identity, land mismanagement, endemic conception, Gondwana’s inland rainforests, the inland sea of to Ordovician and Jandamarra, Australia’s black Ned Kelly (quoting Ted Egan). The top right and bottom left images are a response to the fictional dream of ignorance that we call the outback.
Scott Waldrum
I love this work. With a professional interest in the environment I can see so many hidden stories in it. Ben says “This work was inspired by a walk I took along the Lyrebird Track at Orielly’s in Lamington National Park. From memory the landscape is generally heath in aspect. The day was cold, wet and windy. The photos that I have used in the images construction were taken at varying distance from the heath but for the most part they were quite intimate. The works were an experiment in expressing a sense of immersion in landscape as one travels through it. I am in no doubt that the fact that I was alone on this walk had a direct influence on the aesthetic that I achieved. I feel the work conveys a sense of being surrounded in the experience of landscape. Other bodies of work that were initiated from this trip are Lamington National Park Queensland, Landscapes and Atmosphere and Experiencing the Border Track”.
Gillian Scott
I first saw Bens art at his really intriguing exhibition of paintings and limited edition fine art digital prints on the theme of landscapes passing through deep time. This is one of his Hill End works its called Traces of the Great Southern Rifting This artwork is an example of following in the foot steps of nature. The aesthetic already existed in the arrangement of the continents. My job as an artist was to visually articulate the heightened sense of awe that I felt when viewing a map that provided such obvious evidence of the prior existence of Gondwanaland. I believe I have achieved it through colour and placement. In the work one can clearly see the rifting lines in the submerged crust as the continents tore away from Gondwana and moved northward with their ever evolving ark of life. What could be more sublime? As Australia and the other continents, which once existed as part of Gondwana, drifted north away from Antarctica they left a recorded history of their movements in the ocean floor. This work displays the evidence of plate tectonics as the respective continents of Gondwana separated from Antarctica and drifted north. The brown lines are evidence of rifting and underwater volcanism, the green areas are the continents. The center of this work features a botanical study from Hill End.
Acknowledgements: Satellite image sourced from Volcanic Earth by Lin Sutherland
Gillian Scott 2
In this photo I’m holding up a work that is a real favourite of mine. I believe it was inspired by a trip Ben took to Binna Burra. The work behind me is one of my botanical works that Ben enhanced.
