As last week featured a collection piece from a previous USQ staff member, it seems only fitting that this week we focus on a collection piece from a current USQ staff member: DCA candidate David Usher’s painting The Crossing, 2016.
The Brisbane-born artist began his studies as a ceramic trainee with Kitty Breeden between 1985- 86 at the Kitty Art Studio in Brisbane, then went on to work under Errol Barnes at the Lyrebird Ridge Pottery establishment.
The Crossing explores a site Usher has visited numerous times in his life, on his family cattle property in Western Queensland. His family have picnicked at this spot over the past 150 years, often setting up table and chairs and blankets in the dry sandy riverbed. It was also the spot the family would head for if they received news from upstream properties that the river was running.
The Crossing retains the traces of these memories, and was a part of a body of paintings that referenced the site, and which Usher revisits in his work time and again to reconnect with the essence of the Australian Landscape.
As a doctoral candidate in USQ’s pioneering Doctor of Creative Arts program, David Usher provides a crucially important addition to the University’s ever-evolving, historical snapshot.
David Usher The Crossing 2016 Oil on Canvas USQ Art Collection 2018.2