The Wedderburn artistic community is an informal group of Australian contemporary artists based around Wedderburn, New South Wales, on

Sydney sandstone Sydney sandstone, also known as the Hawkesbury sandstone, yellowblock, and yellow gold, is a sedimentary rock named after Sydney, and the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, where this sandstone is particularly common. It forms the bedrock f ...

bushland In Australia, bushland is a blanket term for land which supports remnant natural area, remnant vegetation or land which is disturbed but still retains a predominance of the original floristics and structure. Human survival in bushland has a wh ...

about 60 kilometres south of Sydney, close to the

Georges River The Georges River, also known as Tucoerah River, is an intermediate tide-dominated Ria, drowned valley estuary, that is located in Sydney, Australia. The Georges River is located south and south-west from the Sydney central business district, w ...

. Artists based around Wedderburn include Elisabeth Cummings, Roy Jackson, John Peart, David Hawkes, Suzanne Archer, David Fairbairn, Michael Bright, Teresa Bell and others. Artists associated with the group have won many major Australian art prizes, including the

Wynne Prize The Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. As one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne. Now held concurrently with the Sir John Sulman Prize ...

, the

Sir John Sulman Prize The Sir John Sulman Prize is one of Australia's longest-running art prizes, having been established in 1936. It is now held concurrently with the Archibald Prize, Australia's best-known art prize, and also with the Wynne Prize, at the Art Galler ...

, the

Doug Moran National Portrait Prize The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize is an annual Australian portrait prize founded by Doug Moran in 1988, the year of Australian Bicentenary, Australia's Bicentenary. It is the richest portrait prize in the world with A$150,000 awarded to th ...

, the Dobell Prize for Drawing, and the

Fleurieu Art Prize The Fleurieu Art Prize is a non-acquisitive award open to Australian visual artists aged 18 years and older. The prize encompasses any two- or three-dimensional artwork submissions that follow an annual thematic concept and includes a monetary g ...

Widden Weddin, Wedderburn

The artistic community around Wedderburn was started in 1976, after the gift of 10 acres of land from local landowners Barbara and Nick Romalis, to an original group containing Elisabeth Cummings, Joan Brassil, Roy Jackson and Fred Braat. John Peart joined in the 1980s, with the extension of the site up to 25 acres. The property was jointly owned by these five artists, and came to be known as Widden Weddin (meaning 'I came, I stayed').

Artistic approach

The Wedderburn artists often seek inspiration from the Australian bush landscape, and the artistic tradition associated with it, including from

Indigenous Australian art Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carving, rock ...

- for instance, Roy Jackson said "If someone asks me what has influenced me most in my work I simply point to the landscape of this place" and Elisabeth Cummings "I’d been away from Australia – in Europe – and what I missed most was the bush… It’s a physical thing of Australia that's so… so different from Europe."

Wildfires

The area is heavily wooded, and subject to bush fires, one of which destroyed Elisabeth Cummings' studio in 1994, also destroying significant amounts of work. During another fire in 2013, John Peart was overcome by smoke while trying to protect his studio, leading to his death.

References

{{Reflist Australian artists Australian contemporary art