Original artwork description:

The starkness of the Australian landscape is beautiful, and a constant source of inspiration to artists.
However, the other side to this is drought.
Australia is a continent defined by extremes of floods, droughts, and heat, but and recent decades have seen some extraordinary climate events.
As a whole, Australia has a very low annual average rainfall of 419 mm (16 in).

The most intense droughts described in the historical records from the 1790’s onwards were devastating to agriculture and the broader economy, but were limited to specific regions.
However, the Millennium Drought of 1997-2009 was larger in area and longer than any other drought in southern Australia over the last 400 years.
The summer of 2018 brought record-breaking heat for Australia. Low river flows caused by a combination of drought and over-extraction of water, coupled with extreme temperatures, caused an environmental catastrophe that killed thousands of fish.
There are large parts of the Macquarie River that have dried up completely as the state of New South Wales remains in the grip of one of the most severe droughts on record.
The summer of 2019 is forecast to be hot and dry.
It’s one part of the climate crisis playing out across much of the country. Most places are drier than usual, warmer than usual.

Materials used:

Acrylic paint

Tags: