Margery Goodall

Description

Margery Goodall, Riding on the sheep’s back: remembering Sturt Meadows 2023, mixed media, wool and timber assemblage. Image courtesy the artist.

Artist’s Statement:

Life at Sturt Meadows in the arid outback was hard. Low rainfall and drought-adapted vegetation made for drought-tolerant livestock and drought-savvy pastoralists. This assemblage of layered wool offcuts on polished timber celebrates over 100 years of running sheep there. Shiny timber represents the unique trees of this area while the array of colours found in the wool scraps salvaged from vintage garments and blankets represent the unrecognised lives of the station workers. Together they bring memories of a way of life that is largely gone now, and symbolise many thousands of hours of station work behind the fabrics exported all over the world ? when wool was king.