"It was hot, very hot indeed while I was painting this canvas of an ancient Australian mallee tree in the outback at Banrock Station. The true intensity of colour in the Australian landscape becomes apparent at the end of the day when the sunsets. The landscape boils in colour, it's amazing. The mallee ringneck parrots add the perfect complementary colour to the sunset. Can you spot the ants ?"

"Mallee trees are multi-stemmed eucalypts that take several hundred years to from hollows. This oldest mallee tree on Banrock Station is probably 500 years old and is full of hollows that provide homes for insects, lizards, bats and parrots like the mallee ringneck. Occasionally the biggest lizards, the goanna, will enter the hollows to dine. Blue bush flourishes after rain in the mallee and the massive tree roots store water for survival during drought."

Item Information

The painting is featured in the book 'Painting the Colours of the World' by Kate Dinn.

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