Mallee inspiration
By Mario Sequeira
Reproduced with permission from Stock & Land.
 You
and I may not see anything in a rusty, discoloured, warped piece
of flat iron lying in a paddock. Artist Martin Tighe however, see
it as a painted canvas.
He was so excited by the find last September – an idea was
germinating in his head – that he brought the piece back with
him, along with a few wheat ears, to Melbourne to work on.
The result is 12 artworks using flat iron and wheat described as
landscape compositions and entitled Wheat Fields.
Mr Tighe is holding a solo exhibition of the work from April 30
to May 4 at the Hogan Gallery, Collingwood.
Mr Tighe discovered the majesty of the Australian landscape five
years ago when he first visited the Mallee.
“It is such a brutal landscape but what amazes me is how
people have cleared it up and made it so productive,” he said
this week. “I love seeing fields of wheat.”
Like many Australians, he is fascinated by the Australian landscape
because it imposes such a powerful impression on our experience.
“But I was always reluctant to embark on landscapes until
I found something that I was really engaged by,” he said.
And the Mallee landscape – “its flatness, natural beauty,
subtleties and productivity” – provided that. The Mallee
is his outdoor workshop, Mr Tighe said.
He gave up his art teaching job eight years ago to concentrate on
his art. Married with three children, Mr Tighe also makes furniture.
He began painting AFL and rugby union sports subjects, and thrice
won the top prize in an annual football exhibition run by a Brunswick
gallery.
Last year, he won a prize for a bronze sculpture of thrice Brownlow
winner Haydn Bunton, a footballer in the pre-war era. He has also
entered portraits in the Archibald competition.
He plans to do more rural artwork, using paint and any Mallee material
that speaks to him.
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