Let Time Be Still: Robyn Litchfield

'Robyn Litchfield takes us into some of the remaining original forests of her native New Zealand, where we quickly become lost in landscapes heavy with primeval time and memory. Instead of grand views and monumental scenes, her paintings linger among the trees, plants and waterways of these unique ecosystems. We travel with her on a journey deep into unfamiliar otherness, along waterways and tracks once used by the original settlers. We stumble across unexpected views, peering through a curtain of trailing fronds. We glide along silent creeks, gazing over stretches of water rippled with the entwined reflections of sky and foliage. We wonder at scenes of natural, untouched beauty, where sinewy tree trunks thrust leafy clouds into a cloudless sky. But the more we look, the more we become disorientated. Differences disappear and these forest scenes all begin to look the same, merging into a chaotic, peripheral confusion that disrupts the focussed desire of our gaze.'

- Excerpt from a new essay for Let Time Be Still by Rev’d Dr Richard Davey. Read the full essay here.

View the exhibition catalogue.