Landslides in Art: Robyn Collier

This, the 26th edition of Landslides in Art, features a painting by the Australian artist Robyn Collier.  Robyn’s bio on her excellent webpage describes her as follows:

Robyn is well-known as a prominent Australian wilderness landscape and seascape painter of contemporary realism who started painting in the early 70’s – when traditional art was really taking off and Sydney Galleries were frequent and successful. Most of what she  has learned has been learned from the observation of nature and constant hard work – being a self realised artist. Having spent many years painting en plein-air she then graduated to studio work and subjects requiring  more time and reference while still retaining the Alla-Prima technique. (Direct painting, wet-in-wet).

Robyn has bush walked extensively over her  40 year career as a visual artist and still walks several times a week. Her real love is traveling to remote areas –  wilderness subjects and areas of difficult access being her special niche.

The piece of work I am featuring here is called “The Landslide“, described by Robyn as follows:

A landscape I was very happy with – painted after a long, but beautiful walk to the Ruined Castle.

The Landslide by Robyn Collier

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The Ruined Castle is in the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, western Australia.  This image appears to show the same site:

Landslides in Art – Robyn Collier. Image from NSW Parks and Wildlife Service

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The painting beautifully captures both the majesty of the site and the dynamic nature of the landslide itself.  The slide is a large rockfall that is reasonably fresh (but it is very hard to date in an environment with very slow process rates), with an enormous forested rockfall deposit at the toe (which must have formed over many events).

The location of The Landslide

I think this is the site on Google Earth (but unfortunately the vertical imagery creates many distortions).  The site is at (-33.732, 150.295):

The site of The Landslide by Robyn Collier, via Google Earth

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Unfortunately this truly beautiful painting of a landslide has been sold.  I envy the owner.