After graduating from the SA School of Art in 1974 I received an Australia Council Living Artist Fellowship to continue work with ‘light, colour, space’. Then, in 1976, while serving a twelve-month stint as artist-in-residence at Griffith University, I witnessed a male Satin Bowerbird decorating its bower at Lamington National Park. This led to a fascination with the behaviour of bowerbirds in the wild. In 1978 I received an Arts SA grant to ‘study the art of the Golden Bowerbird’. This research led to exhibitions in Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Spain. In 2012, John Hayward and I were commissioned to complete a sculpture titled The Bower Walk for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

In 2019 I joined Bill Morrow in what we called the River Bremer Project. The River Bremer in South Australia is a vastly different environment from the cloud forests of Queensland, but for me it held an equal fascination, albeit one tinged with despair. The river and its once majestic valley, severely damaged by human activity, became a metaphor for the wider damage humans have inflicted on the natural world. How could I best portray this damaged river? Reflecting on my earlier work with light, colour, space, and the abstract patterns that developed from the bowerbird work, I decided that one way would be to mark steel plates with cheap commercial paint, then place the sheets in the river at various locations. This way the river would make its own mark, the resulting ‘image’ depending on water quality, location and seasonal flow.

Ian Hamilton
2025

“Mountains and Streams emerge from me. And I, from mountains and streams.”
- Daoji (1642-1708)

“The philosophical act is not situated merely on the cognitive level, but on that of the self and of being.”
- Pierre Hadot (1922-2010)

This exhibition is about the River Bremer and the catchment through which it flows, a catchment of old mountains and streams. The river has many tributaries and two named mountains, Mount Barker and Mount Beevor.

The works shown by me are my response to being with, and occasionally in the river over a period of years. Most of the paintings were done in the open air or, begun in the open air and completed in the studio. Those works are distinct from the studio works which reference human presence and form. At times the river becomes a metaphor for human life. The films however aim to be transcendent by excluding or minimizing human presence and culture.

All the works exhibited by me here were made between 2021 and 2025 but they are part of a thirty-year practice of being in and working with nature. Often that has meant taking a day each week to set off for the Adelaide Hills with Steve Leishman (1994 – 2017) and Ian Hamilton (2010 to the present) to spend an afternoon drawing and painting in the long paddock alongside a dirt road amongst remnant native vegetation.

No drawings or paintings from my outdoor practice have previously been exhibited.

Over the years I have come to view this practice as being both artistic and philosophical.

Philosophical because it is a practice that aims to transform my way of seeing the world and my way of being.

My experience is my own but it has long been said that there are insights to be had by being with nature. It has been said for example that the contemplation of nature confirms the connectedness of all things. That is a concept that can be comprehended intellectually but also something that can occasionally be experienced and felt. Nature contemplating nature.

Artists have an additional reason to be in and with nature and that is their ability to respond and give expression to their experience. Nature expressing nature.

The works exhibited by me here were done for “love”. The love of nature and being with nature, the love of art and the love of philosophy. They are not signed or titled nor are they offered for sale.

Bill Morrow
2025