Fred WILLIAMS
Australia 1927 – Australia 1982
England 1951-56

Wild Dog Creek 1977
oil on canvas
signed lower left
183.0 (h) x 152.5 (w) cm
Private collection
© estate of Fred Williams

In the aptly named Wild Dog Creek,Williams paints the landscape with great vitality. Working out of doors with a luminous palette, thick and thin areas of paint are interwoven, and brushmarks applied quickly in some areas and slowly in others. Williams captures a sense of the dark scrubby bush on the ridges surrounding the creek with slender trunks that appear to be barely anchored in the soil. Vibrant dots and dashes indicate small stones and plant-life clustered around the creek. Rather than attempting to paint running water in a literal way, Williams flattened and abstracted the form of the creek, using it as a luminous focal point of the composition and a space for reflection.