JILL ANSELL

I must admit to whinging at Tineke when she first proposed the theme of Forest Floor for the group exhibition. I am much more comfortable with the beach, dogs, people the desert, anything but the forest! Anyway she was not to be dissuaded by my grumbling and wisely so. I now have to acknowledge that it is very good to work out of your comfort zone - it brings new ideas, presents new problems to solve in paint and a new palette.

The ideas behind this painting of the night forest are similar to themes I have pursued in other paintings where I place a character from a domestic environment into the natural environment and explore the juxtaposition. I enjoy the whimsy and ambiguity the situation creates, but it is more than a visual joke. Many of us spend our lives in endless, petty, domestic rituals oblivious to the world around us and in Western Australia, one of the most sparsely populated areas of the world this seems particularly ironic.

The choice of the night forest for this picture comes from the karri forest of my childhood. My family lived in Northcliffe for a few years and the drive from Northcliffe through to the next town Pemberton is through one of the most beautiful stretches of forest in the world (sadly large areas of it have now been logged). It was a forest that enveloped and swallowed you and at night the car head lights would reflect off the beautiful, white, ghostly trunks of the karri. Beyond the headlights the forest disappeared off forever.

Jill Ansell