Tropical Pool

Rainforest Pools

I lived in South Australia before moving to Queensland. Down there, a place called One Tree Hill was a popular landscape-painting spot! You can imagine the shock when I settled in Queensland and first encountered the dense, green, tropical rainforests of Canungra, Lamington, Lost World and the Border Ranges! These places fired my imagination as never before! The associated images were all painted quite soon after I arrived here, while I was still under the spell of the green, magical landscape as seen under the canopy of the rainforest. I did not paint them on the spot, there were too many leeches, mosquitoes and numerous other biting things for that lark. They were all painted from imagination, after bush walking in the green mountains.

However, it must be a case of life imitates art. By the time I had established my own garden with monstera, staghorns, crows nests and other tropical plants, I had ceased painting imaginary rainforest pools. Now, many years later, my back garden has developed into something that is somewhat reminiscent of these paintings. It includes three fishponds under the tropical canopy.

The garden came many years after I completed these paintings and I didn’t consciously set out to grow a rainforest-type garden, but the garden must represent a 3D projection of subliminal ideas expressed in the paintings. Actually, since I’ve had the garden established (with the ponds,) I haven’t painted any more paintings in this style. After all, if you’ve got the tropical garden, there is no longer a deep need to paint images of it!

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