Reflection on Pebbles - Lin Onus

Lin Onus began as a photo realist painter. By the time he created this work his interest and subject lay in the Aboriginal concept of the Dreaming. Here we see a depiction of the artists dreaming country (The Barman Forest in Northern Victoria) with several jigsaw puzzle shaped pieces missing as if to say that what the viewer sees is not the full story. Also the fish beneath the water are depicted in traditional cross hatch (employing the clan design given to the artist by his adopted family in North East Arnhemland) it is a determined beyond the immediately apparent there is but another reality, the Dreaming.