On "The Heysen Trail"

I was born in Launceston in Tasmania, and began art school there in 1982. My early art school paintings feature landscape subjects and were painted on site amongst the variety of environments that are within easy access to Launceston. My early works are mainly small oil on canvas paintings depicting rural landscapes, beaches and mountains. I enjoyed working outdoors where composition possibilities seemed endless.

I have continued working outdoors as part of my practise. Working outdoors sets up a range of challenges, which I aim to exploit. I bring to the paintings some of the experiences of working outdoors such as changing weather conditions, variations in light, interference of outside elements, interpretation of scale, and often, personal discomfort.

Sketching, painting and photographing outdoors feeds into my studio practise. Working in the studio is an extension of my direct painting methods employed on site and becomes a tool to extend ideas. The studio enables me to experiment with form, ponder on meanings and references, and invent new connections. Studio work also allows me to include cultural influences in my work such as localised media, images, motifs and idiosyncrasies that add meaning and power to the sense of place.

I also collaborate with film maker Cole Larsen on videos about the environments which I paint. We have explored a number of environments that we describe as 'topical landscapes', because these areas gain media attention for issues such as land redevelopment, the impacts of drought, industrial uses, and other environmental issues. These videos are often showed alongside paintings and drawings in the gallery. The videos compliment and add context to some of the paintings, at other times the videos stand alone.  

My paintings are made in a group that form a series, and are about the landscape I am currently living in or recently visited. These landscapes include a variety of environments throughout Australia and in other countries such as Namibia, Malaysia, China, New Zealand, UK and Singapore.

Some of the works act as a visual travel diary while familiar landscapes near to where I live are revisited and reworked over a number of years.  My inspiration comes from experiencing a diverse range of environments, and an interest in how people interact with these places. I'm interested in exploring through my art making a contemporary experience of landscape as it is an essential stage for human interaction. Through my work I hope to contribute to the idea that landscape as a topic is an important, relevant and vital subject for contemporary art making.

Habel’s paintings frequently are inspired by the local industrial landscapes of Gillman and Pelican Point. This exhibition features new paintings completed in the State’s mid-north, alongside a selection of landscape oils from favourite places throughout Australia.

The newest works have been completed en plein air in the Mid North region of South Australia. Completed this year, the paintings depict a flat, dry and dusty farming area outside of Port Wakefield and the saltpans of Lochiel. Working on location has the intention of immediate invention in front of the subject and allows for “environmental interferences” in the paintings such as dust, rain and the unpredictability of mark making. Whilst they celebrate the aesthetic diversity of these regions, the works also point to ongoing debates around land development and environmental concerns.

Habel states; “Gillman and Pelican Point are high profile, topical landscapes that are constantly under review. They aren’t pastoral, nostalgic or gentrified lands, but dynamic landscapes with ever changing roles that inspire community debate about its use and abuse. I view landscapes such as these as contemporary spaces of immediate concern.”