Be the first to see a secret world with Tyger Gallery, Yass.

Driving to Wee Jasper feels like driving into another world. The long, winding road hugging sheer hillsides. Through the trees bursting with the colours of autumn, you see the waters of the dam; blue, or a shimmering silver.

The shadows cast by the steep hillsides grow a life of their own, clutching perpetual darkness in their folds. In winter, they block out the sun by 3 o’clock, the chill rising up from the dam as the wooden stoves are stoked for the night’s approaching cold.

My brother and his wife raised their four sons in a weatherboard cottage, carved into the hillside on Burrinjuck Lake. Visiting them felt like the world had gone quiet, hearing your heart throb in your ears, and the far off chug of an outboard, trailing a lure.

How do we capture ephemeral joy?

At first glance my new exhibition, The Road to Wee Jasper, is a simple series of landscapes of the country that envelopes Wee Jasper and Burrinjuck Dam.

Within the layered collage is an attempt to pin down an ephemeral joy, moments that slip and defy time. Nestled in the landscape are two figures, two of us, sharing a moment that we’ll vainly try to recapture.

These works explore a timeless land where we can escape and reconnect. I call them emotional landscapes as they reflect both what we see and how we feel, respond, reflect in those places.

The vibrant colours and limited palette capture the heightened senses we have when we’re out in the wild, feeling a closeness with the landscape and the people with us.

Visit Tyger Gallery for details of opening night, grab a catalogue and be one of the first to see these new artworks.