Memories blend with new reality in an exhibition of works from the past 20 years of Creswick artist Craig Barrett’s career.
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Many of the works in his exhibition Landmarks, now on at The Lost Ones gallery, are the result of revisiting a rural property near Euroa where he spent many childhood holidays. The property has changed hands several times and is now known as Lindsay Park, the renowned training base for David Hayes Racing.
Mr Barrett has revisited the large estate several times and many of his Landmarks works are a combination of what is there now, along with ghostly sketchings of his childhood memories.
“It feels like I’m buying back the farm, taking back ownership of it again through my memories,” he said.
“I used to joke that David Hayes might own the title but I own the memories.”
Mr Barrett’s many journeys through regional and outback Australia have also inspired his art.
His works explore our relationship with the land and country, and whether we see ourselves as owning or belonging to the land.
Also hanging in the exhibition is what Mr Barrett jokingly calls his “$2 million frame”.
The gilt frame around his striking blue alpine bushfire-inspired painting originally encased a Fred Williams painting that sold for $2 million at a Christie’s auction. The new owner wanted a heavier frame so Mr Barrett recycled the frame for his own artwork.
“I would like people who view the exhibition to take away a sense of warmth in response to the landscape and not just see it as something out there but something we enjoy,” he said.