Landscapes and The Explorer
(Late 1990’s)
Fyffe’s connection to his Australian heritage is evident in his landscape works, particularly those featured in his 2001 solo exhibition Sunburnt Country. Inspired by his extensive travels throughout Australia including Lake Eyre, the Simpson Desert and the Nullabor, these 59 works capture both real and imagined landscapes.
From Luke Elwes, Galleries Magazine October 2001, “A wanderer moves through a sunburnt country – the country of memory, at once a homeland and a wilderness. This is overtly spiritual terrain, crossed slowly by an artist determined to be true to his inner voice. The resulting images, a dry river bed, a stony landscape at night, might also serve as metaphors for the difficult journey Terry FFyffe has chosen to make in a contemporary art world that is largely oblivious to this kind of adventure.”
In relation to this series, Ffyffe himself said “It is not so much about the Australian outback or landscape as such, it’s actually a metaphor for the internal journey.
In my work, I am trying to express the spiritual search countless explorers have made in my country, looking for the answers to the big questions.
It (Australia) is a very powerful country and my paintings reflect that beauty and power as well as being a romantic way of talking about man’s search for meaning.”
This series simultaneously invites us to reflect on our own isolation, the vastness and mystery of both the physical and metaphorical desert, and the spiritual value for us to negotiate and traverse that space.
50 works based on the Australian outback, were exhibited in the Sunburnt Country exhibition in 2001, Lamont Gallery, London.
Some of these works were also included in the London Art Fair, ART 2002.
For details including dimensions and the indicative price of each piece, please click the relevant image.
Introduction by Edward Lucie-Smith to the “Sunburnt Country” Exhibition. Lamont Gallery 2001