Inspired by the colours, textures and rhythms of the island landscape
Robyn Olsen paints Minjerribah, North Stradbroke Island
Feature Artwork
This acrylic painting on canvas was created on Naree Budjong Djara Country, exploring the character of the white-trunked eucalypts that define this bushland. Acrylic paint offers a fluidity of colour suited to the large surface, allowing the flow and movement of branches and foliage to extend freely across the canvas.
This forest is typical of the region — a landscape so familiar it can be taken for granted by the everyday viewer. Through gesture and colour, the work aims to slow that gaze, drawing attention to the rhythm of trunk and branch, the play of light through foliage, and the quiet character of a bush so often passed by without a second look.
About Robyn Olsen
Since her time as student of Mervyn Moriarty in the 1970s and early 80s, and th Australian Flying Art School, Robyn Olsen has painted nature.
Now, a long-time resident of Amity Point, Stradbroke Island, she has lived and painted here for 20 years.
Her large, water-based canvases express gratitude to the island, translating decades spent absorbing its colour, light and form into paint — drawing with colour on a scale that allows movement beyond the hand alone.
"My home is quiet and serene, surrounded by native flora and fauna. In the 20 years I've lived at Amity, I've seen erosion — not just of the sands, but of the quality of life. My art emphasises keeping local habitats intact, showing the diversity of Straddie's bracken, gum and banksia forest. I hope viewers see the value in keeping things as they are."
"A beautiful aged tree ...
How old is it?
Was it there in my mother's grandparents time?
Were they familiar with its spread?
Did they look at it as I have? ...
Saw the knobled trunk and extended branches?
... Harbour for a million parrots
A landmark to guide the fishermen into safe waters.
With its height, it dominates the cove ...
An ideal viewing spot for Osprey.
It's broken silhouette the remains of lost limbs ...shaped by storms of the Bay. The graceful curve of the truck mellowed by the elements.
Now ... lopped and caged
Pruned to fit the suburban march.
Could this be a prediction of the future?
Is this its fate? ... An exotic specimen from the past
A relic... Just another tombstone in the cemetery".
Island Trees
Robyn's artwork explores the natural environment through innovative use of colour, light and form; like drawing with colour. For this reason, in recent years she moved to big canvases that allowed movement of more than just hand in art making.
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