Artist statement

’Songs of the Land’
Lone Goat Gallery, Byron Bay
November 2023

Penelope McManus has spent the past four years painting the local landscape, wetlands, estuaries, creeks, rivers and oceans of the Bundjalung Nation, particularly around Byron Bay (Arakwal Country).

“As a landscape painter I feel it is my responsibility to document the changes happening in the landscape, however most importantly the beauty and wonder that I see every day.”

Human beings are the greatest threat to this planet destroying wild habitats with such alarming speed that scientists predict by the year 2050, half of all known species alone today could be lost forever. Collapses across Australian ecosystems are thought to be a result of multiple chronic pressures including rising average temperatures due to the climate crisis, which have created conditions for drought, bushfires and floods.

McManus first visited and started exploring the waterways, wetlands and ocean around Byron Bay in 2020, having moved from the Southern Highlands of New South Wales (her property was burnt in the Black Summer bushfires).

Moving to the Northern Rivers brought renewed hope - clear skies, vivid greens, blues and pinks. Songs of the Land is inspired from time spent walking, sitting, looking, and listening on country. These works hope to connect audiences with the natural world through paintings that evoke feelings of peace, mystery and wonder. Penelope believes “through strengthening our connection with nature, we will want to protect and look after this vulnerable and precious Earth”.