Wild at heart
The death of her sister left Jennifer Riddle searching for answers to what was really important to her, and led her to Tasmania’s magnificent South West Wilderness
On her most recent visit to Tasmania’s remote South West Wilderness, artist Jennifer Riddle was huddled at the rear of tour vessel Odalisque, soaking wet and pale with sea sickness. “I could hardly open my eyes, I was so nauseous,’’ she recalls of the wild trip back from Bathurst Harbour, when even the seasoned skipper told her he’d never seen waves so big.
“But I looked up and there was an albatross – it was a beautiful display. The albatross came past, and then another one.
“And I thought ‘oh my god, this is so beautiful – but also so hideous’.’’
The Victorian-based artist has been to Tasmania’s South
West several times now, with each trip providing fresh inspiration for her award-winning paintings.
Riddle usually flies in and out of the area with Par Avion, but on this occasion she decided to try something different and return to Hobart by boat with Tasmanian Boat Charters.
However, she laughs, it isn’t something she’ll try more than once. “I was so sick, I was hunkered under a doona,’’ she laughs of the harrowing experience. At one point I was told there were hundreds and hundreds of porpoises, which I assume would have been spectacular, if only I’d actually had good enough sea legs to get up and see them.’’
But even severe sea sickness isn’t enough to dampen Riddle’s enthusiasm for visiting Tasmania’s wild places.
The 50-year-old first visited Tasmania 26 years ago on her honeymoon. She and husband Danny hired a car for two weeks and did a lap of the state, falling in love with the stunning scenery along the way.
They’ve been coming to the state for holidays ever since, exploring various national parks and bushwalking trails, but it wasn’t until six years ago that Riddle first visited the southwest wilderness.
She had previously concentrated on painting the scenery surrounding her Mornington Peninsula home, a landscape she was drawn to following the death of her sister Andrea.
Andrea was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 1999 and died less than 12 months later, at age 33, leaving behind a three-year
old daughter. Her death forced Riddle to carefully re-examine her own life and make some major changes relating to her career and her place of residence.
“Andrea is an important part to my art and how I’ve evolved as an artist,’’ Riddle explains.
“I started studying at art school when I was 17 and always thought I wanted to be an artist. But in many ways I didn’t have the courage because I thought I had to have a real job.’’
Riddle had been working as a visual merchandiser in a retail store but realised art was her true calling.
“A lot of conversations were had [during the time Andrea was sick] and one of the gifts that she gave me was the encouragement to paint,’’ Riddle says.
“In some ways it was like a permission. Seeing what she had been through I just re-evaluated things. So I moved to this beautiful little spot [where she still lives now, on the Mornington Peninsula], inspired by nature.’’
Riddle had felt increasingly connected to the environment during the time her sister was ill, finding solace in nature during such an incredibly difficult time.
So she decided to turn her attention to art, making it her fulltime career, with the intention of capturing that spiritual connection with nature through her large-scale paintings.
At first her local surroundings were enough – she spent her days painting from a studio in her back garden and exhibiting regularly. But eventually Riddle, who was first introduced to oil paints by her mother when she was just four years old, felt she needed more.
“It wasn’t until 2015, after painting for quite some time, that I just had a yearning to go to other places and find connections somewhere else,’’ she explains.
“I saw a photo online of Port Davey and Bathurst Harbour, taken from the top of Mt Rugby. And I couldn’t quite believe this place existed.’’
Because although she’d always had “quite a love affair with Tasmania” and had drawn on her previous trips to Tasmania as a point of reference when painting, Riddle felt a fresh spark of enthusiasm when faced with that striking image from the mysterious South West.
“The remoteness appealed to me,’’ she says of her desire to visit Bathurst Harbour. “You can only get there by sailing or flying – or a seven-day walk.’’
Her first visit to the region didn’t disappoint – she’s returned several times since, with a camera, pencils and sketchbook in hand, and never tires of the unique beauty she witnesses on each trip.
Riddle relies on photographs to help prompt her memory when painting, but insists there’s so much beauty and wonder about the place that goes beyond capturing photographs.
“For me, it’s important to not just take photos, but to experience the place,’’ Riddle explains. “I try and put that emotional content into my work; it’s not just a photographic replica.’’
Riddle says “tremendous” guides including Tasmanians Nick Mooney, Peter Marmion and Greg Wells had helped provide wonderful insights about the region and its cultural heritage.
“I think at the heart of going there – and why I go there – is there’s just a profound sense of awe when I’m there,’’ she says.
“There are the theatrics of the weather – it’s sometime calm, sometimes wild. And there are certainly beautiful moments in those harbours … when the tannin waters are reflecting the mountains and the vegetation. But it’s not like a twee beauty, there’s rawness to this beauty. And with that rawness I think you feel the isolation of the place. And there’s a tranquillity that I’ve never experienced before.’’
Riddle says it’s a place she can find clarity and enjoy quiet contemplation away from the distractions of the modern world.
One of her first paintings of Tasmania’s South West – entitled Totem – captured the beauty of the Celery Top Islands in Bathurst Harbour and was purchased as part of the art collection at Parliament House, in Canberra, in 2016.
She has been a finalist in the prestigious Glover Prize four times, as well as the Hadley’s Art Prize and Bay of Fires Art Prize. And she has won People’s Choice awards in Tasmania many times, which she loves as she feels her work must really resonate with local audiences.
Riddle has also been scouting for locations to host a pop-up exhibition in Hobart which she hopes will be held late next year.
Her two children, Henry, 13, and Matilda, 15, are equally smitten with Tasmania and most family holidays are spent exploring the state.
“What I love now is that when Henry and Matilda talk about holidays and going places, Tasmania is their go-to place as well,’’ the proud mum explains. “Some of their friends might be going to Queensland to visit a theme park and we say to them ‘where would rather go?’ “
And much to her delight they choose Tasmania. “Danny and I are fist pumping the air because we’ve done something right – they truly love coming here and experiencing the things that we love,’’ she says.
Riddle feels privileged to be able to visit a place as remote as Bathurst Harbour – it’s a place that is part of the Southwest National Park and Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, and is also a place that many Tasmanians have not even visited.
She is also passionate about protecting such wild places.
“I feel like having experienced that loss [of losing Andrea] it has given me a strong focus on what I feel is important to me,’’ she says.
“One of the reasons I was drawn to the wilderness was the growing concerns of the environment and realising that these wilderness places are fragile and vulnerable.’’
Riddle says the fact that the Port Davey/Bathurst Harbour Marine Nature Reserve is three times the size of Sydney Harbour, yet remains largely untouched by modern civilisation, is just mind-blowing.
Capturing the beauty of such a large and diverse place – with its crisp clean air, rugged peaks and ancient forests – in a single trip just isn’t possible, Riddle says, which is why she will continue to return to the area.
“The best way to describe that place is that it is just like entering another world,’’ she says.
“It is a place that time has forgotten. You see the beautiful, rich, cultural heritage and there’s unique marine life that’s found nowhere else in the world underneath those layers of tannin water.’’
Although she laughs that, despite her recent bout of seasickness, she’s not exactly roughing it the way many early explorers would have.
“I feel a bit guilty because I’m really looked after when I’m there,’’ Riddle says.
“I’d like to say I trekked in for seven days and fought off leeches, but of course I haven’t.
“But even the way that I plan my trips, it’s not an easy place to access, that’s for sure. And I think that’s a big part of the appeal. I feel very privileged to be able to go there.’’