
More about Wallaby in a Pear Tree, 2010
The idea for this painting is a further development of the subject of the voyages of discovery by Mathew Flinders and Nicolas Baudin where both England and France were keen to chart the coastline of Australia and in so doing became the protagonists in an epic story. The drawings of marsupials by the leading naturalists Ferdinand Bauer and Charles-Alexander Leseueur who accompanied the English and the French voyages respectively are used here to represent the Australian inquisitiveness of English and French culture.The painting of the pear tree is inspired by a design for the Orchard Tapestry, 1890 by William Morris. The Wallaby is a Black-Footed Rock Wallaby, 1802 copied from a drawing by Ferdinand Bauer naturalist accompanying the Flinders’ voyage in the Endeavour.