25/07/2026
Opening event today @ 3pm
ROY OORLOFF
Ancient Sounds
New Paintings 2025 ~ 2026
Artist talk & opening event
Saturday 25 July 3pm – 6pm
Exhibition dates
21 July – 8 August 2026
artwork:
Roy Oorloff
The Wild Green Dance 2026
Acrylic on Canvas on Board
1200 x 1200 mm
Representing the decades-long process of reforesting land, TWGD is a record of the precursor states – looking, listening and thinking prior to the actual restoration work. Renewal ecology focuses upon 3 broad principles – restore native ecosystems, maximize biodiversity, ensure environmental sustainability.
Once some level of knowledge, and awareness of process requirements has been achieved, then the practical work proceeds. Contributions from many volunteers - cheap family labour, generous friends, and unsuspecting conscripts have assisted to help realize the project. Today, the dance in time, or all the human energy – the ‘hard yakka’, machinery hours, plant stock and labours of love expended in time combine to create a complex natural habitat. That habitat is frequented by native avian and terrestrial fauna.
Equally importantly, human activities are stimulated by proximity to many natural systems – flowering plants bring olfactory and visual stimulus; later, fruit feed birds, animals and people. Growth cycles suggest the passage of time, and concomitant change. Observing that triggers learning about the self, and the entire world, a philosophically desirable state of grace.
Nicholas Poussin’s great painting ‘A Dance To The Music Of Time’ (1736) shows Apollo in his Sun chariot, Aurora and The Hours, and the Four Seasons performing a measured, rhythmic dance to the music of Time’s lyre.
Unashamedly inspired, I have based several dimensions of this painting upon that great picture. Visually, my painting represents the intrinsic energy, and rhythmic movement latent within a natural landscape. It also refers to the human agency responsible for change. Key features are sedimentary rock, the density of regrowth trees and shrubs, and the perpetual presence of subterranean water. Bird calls, animal movements and the occasional human presence also is evident.
~ Roy Oorloff
