Canola Fields Forever

Image: Cathy Frawley, ‘2b Untitled’ (detail), 2023, oil on board, 20 x 30 cm. Image courtesy the artist. 

Canola Fields Forever

Cathy Frawley 
Modbury Hospital and SpARC

25 March – 9 July 2024 

View Online Catalogue 

Canola Fields Forever spoke of the transformative nature of colour and light in the Australian landscape. The paintings were abstract interpretations of the positive experience of being in nature translated through colour, light and the simplification of form.  

On a recent trip to Queensland, I drove past fields of canola. These fields of brilliant yellow juxtaposed against fields of green and a bright blue sky seemed to go on forever. My immediate emotional response to this was one of pure joy and elation.   

These continued glimpses or moments experienced in nature accumulated over time.  In abstracting the landscape my focus is on the accumulative and transformative nature of colour and light as felt in the landscape through repeated positive experiences. Recalling these glimpses or moments and translating them through painting I believe has contributed to my ongoing positive mental health and wellbeing.   

I would like to share these experiences. I believe nature has transformative potential. Where patients, health workers or members of the public may not have access to nature within a health setting, I believe I contributed to their wellbeing through translating my experience of nature through this project.  

-Cathy Frawley 

Artist Bio  

Cathy Frawley is an Australian painter based in Adelaide, South Australia. A graduate of both Adelaide Central School of Art, where she holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts with Honours and The University of South Australia, South Australian School of Art where she holds both a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Master of Visual Arts (Research).