Adelaide Artist Sarah McDonald to Raise Funds for CFS with Exhibition Inspired by Sampson Flat Bushfire

Acclaimed Adelaide artist Sarah McDonald will celebrate the resilience of the South Australian bush and raise money for the SA Country Fire Service in a special two day only pop-up exhibition in November.

To be held at picturesque Murdoch Hill Wines in Oakbank on November 5 and 6, After the Fires examines the destruction and subsequent renewal and rejuvenation of the Adelaide Hills after the horrific Sampson Flat bushfire which ripped through the area in January 2015.

Burning more than 20,000 hectares of bush and farmland, killing thousands of livestock and destroying 27 homes over seven days, the Sampson Flat and Kersbrook fires were the worst to affect the Adelaide Hills region since Ash Wednesday in 1983.

Mercifully no lives were lost, but the fire left a trail of destruction in its wake that McDonald felt compelled to document.

"Driving through the area at first, it was eerie and incredibly emotional," she says.

"The devastation was almost unimaginable: scorched earth, blackened trees, burnt out cars and buildings in ruins. Even going back weeks afterward I could still smell the smoke. But what stood tall were the strong tree trunks. Nature over time has been burnt out again and again, but nature often needs burning to reseed. There was something in that that I wanted to capture."

In her signature heavily textured oils, McDonald's haunting works on canvas depict destruction turning to rebirth, blackness becoming green, in an evocative then-and-now look at a familiar landscape rendered alien, our own backyard both destroyed and rejuvenated by the same natural force.

As a tribute to the hard working volunteers who risk their lives to protect ours, McDonald will donate part proceeds of all sales to the CFS. Donation boxes will also be on site at the exhibition on both days.

"What struck me most when I drove through the aftermath of the fire were the cardboard signs on the side of the road people had made saying thank you to the CFS. 'Thank you for saving our house, our farm, our livestock'," McDonald says.

"There would be utter blackness on one side, then the road, then greenness where the CFS had stopped the fire. I want this exhibition to highlight the incredible work they do, and help their cause in some way."

After the Fires will be officially opened on Sunday, November 6 at 2pm by Belinda Cay, director of science and agricultural education consultancy AgCommunications, who was a victim of the more recent Pinery bushfires. Belinda and her extended family lost everything in the catastrophic blaze, which tore through SA's lower mid north in November destroying hundreds of home and buildings and killing two people.

Having experienced the horror of a bushfire first-hand and risen from the ashes herself, Belinda will share her unique and inspirational story in a special keynote speech to open the exhibition.

Sarah McDonald's "After the Fires" is on at Murdoch Hill Wines, 260 Mappinga Road, Oakbank for two days only on Saturday November 5 and Sunday November 6, 2016.

Admission is free, and Murdoch Hill wine tasting will be available.

After the Fires
A new exhibition of works by Sarah McDonald

Saturday, November 5, 11am to 4pm and Sunday, November 6, 2pm to 5pm (official opening)

Murdoch Hill Wines, 260 Mappinga Road, Oakbank SA, Ph: 8389 7081

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born and raised in Adelaide, Sarah McDonald is an award-winning artist of more than 20 years who has exhibited widely across Australia and in New York, and is represented in many corporate and private collections.

In August she was awarded the Port Pirie Southern Flinders Art Prize for her work "Mount Remarkable", while in May another of her paintings was reproduced in various public spaces around the City of Unley after winning the People's Choice Award in the All Connections to Unley Art Prize.

McDonald is also a fully qualified teacher and runs her own art school, teaching painting fundamentals, drawing and sculpture, and works from her home studio in the beautiful Adelaide foothills.

Known for her boldly colourful, heavily textured works in oil, she is particularly inspired by landscapes, both urban and natural environments, using thick layers of oil paint, built up and scratched away by brushes and palette knives, to create rich and dense works.

Each painting offers an opportunity to traverse landscapes, continents and seasons, and in each painting, there is a quality that evokes emotional responses from every viewer as they re-tell their own story, stirred by memories and images of their own past.

WEBSITE: s-mac.com
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/sarahmcdonaldartist