Halinka Orszulok

Halinka’s paintings represent uncanny night-time environments that are ambiguous, contradictory and often unacknowledged, like the unhomely home or the landscape that belongs to neither nature nor culture. Taking photographs at night and then painting them onto canvas imbues the resulting images with an eerie stillness, for while photography speaks of a fleeting moment, painting and the hours of labour involved lend the image the presence of a solid, fixed object. There is the sense of a fragmented narrative, a moment before and a moment after that remain unseen, leaving the viewer to respond according to their own feelings and subconscious associations. These are as much psychological spaces as physical ones. Recent work has been preoccupied with historical layers of use and habitation within the landscape and the ever-present question of ownership and identity reflected there.

The title reflects the historical barrier of the Great Dividing Range that not only marks a change in landscape, but delineates a shift in perspective with regard to land use, resources and community. On its western side, communities and infrastructure only exist because of certain industries, and the connection between production in regional areas and urban life on the eastern side of the range can be invisible. Traditionally, this divide is a deeply political one. The sites Halinka visited to create this work divulge stories of the relationship between people and the land out west since colonial settlement.