‘Mandy Martin: Homeground’ is a Bathurst Regional Art Gallery touring exhibition currently on show at Penrith Regional Gallery, Sydney. The survey exhibition focuses on the artist’s continuous concern and exploration of the New South Wales landscape – the rivers and the deserts – and the changing modes of its depiction. Environmental issues relating to water security, the impact of coal-fired power stations and open cut mines are tackled with such a unique art practice and intellectual perspective that audiences are forced to think, engage and appreciate their natural surroundings.

Mandy Martin and Alexander Boynes, Blast, 2015, pigment, oil, linen and digital projection loop, 180 x 320cm. Collection of the artist
Can you describe the layers of your artmaking process? How do you go from idea to finished artwork?
Drawing is integral to my art practice and when a subject captures my imagination or eye I start with hasty thumbnail sketches, sometimes I make much more resolved studies in found media and pencil on stretched paper or small oil studies on linen. Most artworks are supported by photos. Mega Fire at Lithgow, like most of my fire paintings, is simply from media cuttings or photos, for obvious reasons. The process of drawing is pretty similar to that of making a final painting, the first step involves rough fluid washes in found pigments, creating a middle tone on the lightly grounded support. I then usually work in my dark tones, followed by coloured pigments (where needed) and highlights. I use found materials and pigments wherever I can, to capture the materiality of the site. If people cannot visit a place it is difficult to feel for that place, so the materiality is a bridge to feeling.
The exhibition comprises examples of your collaborative practice. Can you discuss your joint projects in relation to your paintings with Indigenous artist Trisha Carroll and digital projections with artist Alexander Boynes?
Trisha Carroll was the Wiradjuri mentor for the ANU Art and Environment program I ran for the School of Art, in the Central West of NSW. Trisha suggested on one of these field trips that we all make a collaborative work, titled the Meeting place; it was about reconciliation on the Lachlan River. Trisha and I have subsequently worked together on the absence and presence of Wiradjuri Traditional Owners in the Central West.
Alexander Boynes is a vibrant artist working across mediums including painting, video and installation. He has strong environmental interests which is why we have collaborated on two projects in remote Indigenous communities. Blast (2015) and Willow Yellow (2016) exhibited in ‘Homeground’ are about mining in the Central West and bring that collaboration home, allowing me to tackle new technical challenges and for us both to work on a larger size, to introduce temporal elements in a prolonged manner. We enjoy adding a little magic through dynamic digital forms and painterly colour and texture to create a work which cannot exist without its other half.

Mandy Martin and Alexander Boynes, Willow Yellow (still), 2016
‘Homeground’ is a survey exhibition comprised of works created in the last 20 years of your career. What was the selection process? Why were these 20 works specifically chosen?
Sarah Gurich curated the exhibition and her selection of works was very close to those I would have chosen. This was in part driven by the large and excellent collection Bathurst Regional Gallery hold of my work, and also the large work that Orange Regional Gallery hold, Not in arCadia ego (1970). I have kept major works in my personal collection over that period and choosing 20 works for 20 years seemed apposite! Sarah focused on the mining and environmental story in her selection, which has really been my dominant ouevre anyway.
You have a ‘deep unease’ about the landscape. What are your main concerns?
We have precious little time to avert catastrophic climate change and I am deeply concerned about our inability to reign in our dependence on carbon intensive industries, let alone those based on mining the fossil fuels which contribute to that warming process. On top of that we are rapidly seeing the effects of climate change in rural Australia with records in rainfall and temperature being created every year. Perched on the side of Pennyroyal Hill with a panoramic view not only of Cadia Gold Mine but of the Lachlan River Valley, is literally outside my studio.

Mandy Martin, Homeground 1, 2004, from the ‘Absence and Presence Series’, ochre, pigment and oil on linen, 183 x 270cm. Collection of the artist
Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest
Until 26 February, 2017
Sydney
A Bathurst Regional Art Gallery exhibition