OUTBACK ART

A natural passion

The wonder of nature has always captivated Robie van Hemert. The NSW artist's meticulous eye and delight in her surrounds continually inform her work.

Story Kirsty McKenzie Photos Ken Brass

It all began with a shell collection. When Robbie van Hemert was seven or eight years old, her mother was studying for a science degree, so to keep her daughter occupied, she encouraged her to collect and identify seashells, which she painstakingly presented in shirt boxes with see-through lids.

A natural passion Today that passion for collecting and collating has turned into an artistic career, which Robbie launched recently at Belltrees Public School, with an exhibition of her works in wildlife.

Robbie's exhibition was held at the tiny country school on the famous NSW property because that's where her daughter Molly is a pupil. Robbie and husband Steve bought Saddleback, an Angus cattle property near Gundy not far from Scone in the Upper Hunter, in the mid '80s. There she has been able to foster her love of the natural world and turn her flair with pencils and brush into an absorbing passion, a degree and now a business compiling multi-media representations into journals chronicling rural life.

Full story Issue 32 Dec 2003/Jan 2004