PRIZEWINNER
AUSTRALIA
Robert Holcombe
Cry in the Wilderness (Rape of the Landscape) 1998
acrylic, crayon, ink, and pencil on watercolour board
49 x 69.5 cm
Exhibition Catalogue No. 10

Robert Holcombe, born in Kyabram, Victoria, Australia, in 1945, is a self-taught artist who has exhibited widely in Australia. He lives and works in Bentleigh, Victoria. He describes Cry in the Wilderness as a ‘metaphorical representation of the destruction of the Australian landscape’. It shows the female form of Mother Earth being ‘raped’. Two white fractures indicate the permanence of the damage to the natural environment, a process fuelled by business interests, represented by the dollar sign. Dotted lines represent highways and a band-aid denotes temporary repair and cover-up. The flatness, geometric patterning, and palette of earth colours are reminiscent of Aboriginal art; and the violence of the imagery recalls work by Picasso and Francis Bacon.