We've Golden Soil
We've Golden Soil is a collection of abstract paintings that continue to prod at the intersection of landscape, nationalism, and environmental degradation in contemporary Australia. The exhibition takes its name from a line in the Australian national anthem, a tongue in cheek appropriation that is referenced through the artworks materiality and palette.
We've Golden Soil furthers McAlpine’s work materially with the inclusion of cast ornate frames in several paintings that reference Western Australia’s colonial legacy and continued presence today. Artworks are rendered with a gritty impasto surface in a palette that alludes to landscape, land development and chemical leaching. The paintings’ compositions and mark making has been influenced from concrete sheets, a familiar site in Perth’s many industrial areas and building developments.
Several of the paintings incorporate ornate frames, cast from a replica of the James Stirling portrait frame. The artworks aim to speak to the colonial legacies still embedded in Western Australia while speaking more broadly to the historical connotations of gold ornate frames as symbols of status and power. The painting leeches onto the ornate frame and in some cases fully encapsulates it, leaving hints of gold buried beneath the thick paint.
