Mutooroo
Michele Donegan
7 - 28 September 2024
Opening Reception: Thursday 12th August, 6 - 8 pm
West End Art Space
Artist Statement
I was born and raised in the desert mining town of Broken Hill, NSW. In recent years I have returned to Broken Hill where I live for at least half the year. I am a desert girl and often say I have red dirt in my veins. I visited Mutooroo Station in February this year and stayed with my friend in the shearers’ quarters. We had coffee and breakfast every morning on the open fire in front of the quarters and sat outside in the sweet evening air and marvelled at the night sky. I fell in love with the vast nature of this ethereal landscape.
We were very fortunate on our visit to the outstation at Lambert’s Hut that the Mutooroo workers (2 men and 2 girls) and their dogs were sorting the sheep and loading them onto a truck. The surface ‘soil’ around Lambert’s Hut is extremely fine red bull dust. Any small movement results in the dust puffing up and filling the air, almost obliterating and disappearing the people into the space around. The people and animals become ephemeral images that disappear and reappear before your eyes. This speaks to me of the tenuous relationship between man and nature.
My work as an artist references place, history, and memory. I love to move from place to place and immerse myself in different landscapes. I often walk in the landscape and collect objects and images. These collections inform my art practice in film, photography, sculpture, drawing, writing and installation. Maurice Merleau Ponty beautifully sums up my artistic philosophy: ‘One of the great achievements of modern art and philosophy has been to allow us to rediscover the world in which we live, yet which we are always prone to forget’.
About Mutooroo
Mutooroo is one of the properties owned by The Mutooroo Pastoral Company. As I understand the name Mutooroo is an Aboriginal word that may be translated as “place of good food’ (ref: The Manning Index of South Australian History, Munro Siding – Mutooroo, collections.slsa.gov.au). The property is 100 kilometres south west of Broken Hill, in South Australia. It is 2,500 square kilometres and approximately 618,000 acres. They run 35,000 sheep and produce meat and wool. The managers Adam and Kirsty Lomman kindly gave us access to the property. I am very grateful to them for their generosity.
