I truly love my country and thank God every day that this is where He placed me to enjoy my short time on Earth.

Pam, my wife, and I felt the urge to explore, so we purchased a mobile home. So far it has taken us to South Australia and Tasmania and all over Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Besides the usual snaps of people and historical gems, I take hundreds of photos of the land, usually from a high vantage point. I search for the right colours to place beside others in order for the painting to come alive. A boring vista of dead grass on a dry, salt-bush plain provides an opportunity to place splashes of bright yellow and blue together on a base of brilliant red and orange. The paintings are not true representation of what really exists which is why I do not call my paintings “West of Boulia”, “Vineyards at Denman”, “Canefields near Ingham”, and so on. I simply call them “My Country” and have numbered them in order of execution since I began this series in May 2003.

For some, these paintings will be too bright. I do not apologize for this, if we look hard enough, those colours are right there in the landscape of our country. I have included in this exhibition scenes from the lavender fields of Tasmania, the vineyards of the Hunter, North Queensland, the outback and the coastal areas. It is my dearest hope that the images will remind you of places you have been and perhaps in your future travels, you will find places that remind you of my paintings. How bold is that!

Max Butler