Lucy T. SMITH
b.1968 Australia
The Melaleuca Woodlands [detail] 1994
Watercolour on illustration board
22 x 50 cm
Purchased for the James Cook University Art Collection in 1994,
Photograph: Michael Marzik
The Melaleuca Woodlands [detail] (1994), by Lucy T. Smith (1968- ).
Photograph: Michael Marzik.
Smith has stated, “this piece represents the woodands that I was illustrating for my Honours year BVA project when I was a student at JCU. I loved the way the woodlands formed horizontal stripes of colour, which were accentuated if you viewed them from the window of a travelling car, when they went blurry. Those colourful 'stripes' also neatly divided the woodlands into the three areas I would
investigate – trees and epiphytes, shrubs and ground plants. The blackened trunks of the trees show that periodical fires occur here and are part of the natural life of the woodlands.
To do this whole project I volunteered as a field assistant to a JCU botanist/ecologist who was doing fire studies on these woodlands. In this way I was able to travel with him to sites between Townsville and Ingham, and even to Hinchinbrook Island. The painting was intended to introduce the viewer to this unique habitat and hopefully entice them in to look closer at it."
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