“I have always lived with art, not as an occupation, rather it is a passion that has been curated from a very young age.”
– Roscoe Shelton
A life lived embedded in art. My father was a talented artist, a student of Max Meldrum back in the 1950’s. I recall a number of trips where Dad would set up his easel and in a matter of hours had produced a lovely landscape.
After his passing, as a young engineering student, I took my first steps to establish a small collection and tried my hand at a couple of canvasses. I have a lovely collection.
I learn from the close understanding of some great painters. The Fred Williams and Arthur Boyds, The Arthur Streetons and the Clarice Beckett’s etc, Cezzanne.
In terms of style, I see that each had skills that are particularly good in representing landscapes. Williams in the outback, Beckett in the fading light etc.
There is a discipline to painting that appeals.
I love the outback; my painting brings a learning and an understanding. of the landscape. I want my paintings to reflect that understanding and emotion..
I think I do my best work when absolutely immersed in a landscape; where its’ very essence cuts through to the bone. It’s not easy to explain, but if I think about my favourite works, say, at Arkaroola – the dying trees etc., you get to reflect on the cycle of life, 300 year old trees under stress. Is it the challenge of climate change? Are we witnessing the end of an epoch or is this just another phase? The cycle of life in the outback is much longer than a humans lifetime. You feel humbled by it, you marvel at it, you trust that it survives.
]t was inevitable that Roscoe would turn to painting in Australia’s outback. He is attuned to the detail in the landscape – “You get drawn to it, it opens up, layer by layer, the geology, the understanding of how it became where timeframes extend beyond seasons to ages and provide clues to the very formation of the earth”.
Roscoe uses his art, an authentic depiction of an authentic landscape, to bring that understanding of the power of nature to an interested audience and “perhaps draw them into experiencing this remote reality for themselves”. The outback serves as a beacon to become reacquainted with our core values and an understanding that the natural world facilitates.
Roscoe draws on his experience of the outback, the desert, and the contradictions. He sees the harshness, the unforgiving rule of nature, with the ever-marching tide of the evolution of the earth, from the volcanic morass, the crashing tectonic plates and the bubbling acid baths to the dry riverbeds, the steep sided gorges, where water crashes through once in a decade and yet creates something of beauty.
The relentless, harsh reality of the desert brings fleeting moments of beauty. It might be the morning, it might be the evening light catching a cliff face, it might the desert cloud or reflections at sunrise or sunset, it might be that transient splash of water or some vegetation after a recent desert sprinkling, but there is always a reminder that human beings are bit players in the march of geological time.
Roscoe has spent much time out on the open roads of the outback. He was a proprietor of the iconic Flinders Camping and had many opportunities to walk in the Flinders Ranges, in the Gammon Ranges and around Arkaroola. He has never tired of the frequent road trips between Adelaide and Darwin with the Michigan Solar Car Team and before that as part of his corporate career covering South Australia and the Northern Territory with the oil industry, always taking the opportunity to explore and understand the localities of the Flinders Ranges, the central Australian ranges, and the parks of the Far North.
