23 September 2026
I’ve
recently spent a weekend in Melbourne (for another celebration of the life of
another friend lost) and on advice, went to an exhibition at the Potter Gallery
of Art at the University of Melbourne. The gallery itself has been redeveloped
and enlarged since I last visited but more impressive than the space itself was
Ngarn Wa’ngai - Breathing for Us- Art of the Gum Tree.
Having
spent weeks in Arnhem Land with its tall slender paperbarks, stringybarks and
woollybutts, it was wonderful to be surrounded by images of even more gum
trees. Having learnt to identify three last month, I now have 897 more to go.
The exhibition is brilliant in its range even though not every piece appealed.
There is work by indigenous artists who have a deep, spiritual connection to
the trees. There is work by colonist artists who found the gum trees both
fascinating and frightening. And then there’s the work of contemporary artists
responding to both the beauty of the trees and the tragedy of those we have
lost through clear felling and burning, farming and mining, and just building
our suburban homes. Susan and I were lucky in Ward Grove, Pascoe Vale South,
with towering flowering gums in our street attracting the lorikeets and the
wattlebirds. And we do have a gum tree out the front of our new house but, says she
shamefacedly, I haven’t checked to see what sort it is.
Of
the art, I was particularly attracted to all sorts of different work, from
leaves engraved onto old street signs using an angle grinder to tiaras and
necklaces based on the shape of gum leaves. There were scenes of colonial Australia
painted onto gum leaves and the paintings of some of the iconic settler artists
such as Hans Heysen and Fredrick McCubbin. There were some surprising pieces such
as the classic car painting by John Brack which turns out to have tiny gum
trees in the background and bitter pieces about the damage we’ve done as we’ve
ripped trees out of the ground to make way for our modern lives. And of course there was a wonderful collection of indigenous paintings from the brushes of artists
that I love such as Albert Namatjira and an unexpectedly beautiful reflection
piece by Lin Onus. There were books of illustrations and collections of gum
nuts and as well as the art, the Gallery had also installed aromas so in one
gallery one could breathe in a lemon-scented gum (corymbia citriodara) and in
another, the narrow-leaved peppermint (eucalyptus radiata).
The Gallery,
in conjunction with Melbourne University Publishing, has produced a stunning
publication with an impressive array of images, commentary, essays, indigenous stories and even poetry
about gum trees: https://www.mup.com.au/books/ngarn-wa-ngal/9780522882520 If you
have any interest in the Australian landscape, I can highly recommend that you add it to your coffee table collection.
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