To complement our new MCR and add a splash of colour, we invested in an original painting by Australian artist Michelle Hungerford, with a generous personal contribution from the previous college President Anne Lonsdale.
Michelle studied at Newcastle University where she won the National Tertiary Art Prize and had one of her paintings reproduced as the university’s Christmas card. Michelle met our former College secretary, Liz Pearson, through mutual friends and gave her one of these cards. When Liz returned home from her visit to Tamworth, Australia, she showed the card to “The Powers That Be” in College and Michelle has since visited Murray Edwards twice to exhibit her work. Here’s what Michelle says about our painting:
“I’m grateful for your interest in ‘Lemon Yellow Hill’ and my painting in general. This body of work was inspired by the light and space in the mindscape of my surroundings. Tamworth is a regional town in the
northwest New South Wales. We are situated half way between Brisbane and Sydney (cities you may have heard of), about 4 hours inland. I live a few kilometres from town in an area known as Daruka.
We live on a hill with a great view of the west and the south. From here we experience the most amazing light shows in the early mornings and evenings. Lemon Hill is not an actual name; I guess it exists now though as I have named it and it is seen when I walk through the bush near my home. The painting came about through a series of visual memories of seeing this place on a regular basis . The structure in the painting is like a view in which you have a frontal and two side views pasted together. The light is distinctly summary – the trees look like bleached bones in strong light. I also have a ‘thing’ for tracks through the bush. They give a sense of a human presence like an empty chair in a room. The colour of the earth is a red/orange and a good contrast to the native red grass, which at that time of day is fairly bleached of colour too.”
You can see “Lemon Yellow Hill” in the MCR on the wall nearest the door. Enjoy the view!