In Small Beautiful Scrubland #4, I have drawn into the more intimate scale of landscape—43 cm × 63 cm, oil and wax on canvas—so that what might normally be overlooked can become the focus of attention. Here the scrub isn’t heroic or grand; it is subtle, close to hand, and quietly alive.
 
Working in the small-format allows me to engage deeply with the nuances of the under-storey: the twisted forms of dry twigs, the shimmer of ochre grasses, the soft interplay of light and shade filtering through sparse foliage. The wax layer, with its translucent depth, serves as a kind of memory-keeper: it holds the gesture of mark-making, the shifting light, the atmosphere of the near-ground view.
 
While many of my larger works explore the vastness of the interior bush or river corridors, this piece invites the viewer to lean in—to attend to the “almost-minute” in landscape: the patterning of twig against sky, the frond-edge of dried grass, the still-ness lurking within tangle. It poses a gentle question: What happens when we shrink the vista and widen our attention?
 
In Small Beautiful Scrubland #4, you will find a palette of modest warmth—muted golds, deep greens, soft greys—interwoven with crisp linear forms of branches and subtle accumulations of texture. It’s a painting about presence: the presence of place, the presence of being in place, the presence of looking.
 
My hope is that the viewer will pause before it, not simply regard the canvas, but feel the quiet thrum of the scrubland: the breath of wind through dead foliage, the hush of light lingering on dry leaves, the layering of forms that suggest both escape and return. In this smaller size I aim to offer a moment of intimacy: a pause, a connection, a closer look — and in that closeness, a recognition of the understated beauty of what is often passed by.
 
43cm x 63cm Floating oak frame, oil and wax on canvas