july 16 - 22 | 2014
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Thomas’ heartland By KYLIE WILSON
BORN AND BRED:
Artist Thomas Lawler has a deep affinity for the bushland of the North East. PHOTO: Vanessa Burgess
GARDENING WITH
DEBBI
RSPCA
WITH
EBONY
FILM SUNSHINE
ON LEITH
WINE TALK WITH
ANITA
EVEN when he was a child, the bushland of the North East was a constant companion and tonic for local painter Thomas Lawler. The young Thomas would frequently pedal away into the Buckland Valley bush as an escape from everyday life. “As a kid, I used to go out in the bush on my own, just to get away,” he said. And, like his bush escapes, he has been creating art for as long as he can remember – one of the paintings included in his current exhibition is a landscape of Stoney Creek, which was painted when he was just 12. For Thomas Lawler, the landscape is his muse and his home. It is hardly surprising that he is so at home in the North East, with his family having been in the area for generations. In decades gone by, Thomas Lawler’s paternal grandfather, John Alfonso Lawler, owned the lease on Mt Hotham and Feathertop and many of its surrounding areas, while his maternal grandfather, Frank Blair, was a landowner on the West Bogong high plains. And although he has lived in many places in Australia and overseas, he still cherishes his childhood in the area and feels there is no place better to live than the North East. He creates many of his works where he lives at a family property in Freeburgh, Dunmovin, which overlooks Mt Feathertop. continued page |
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