The mystery, starkness and beauty of the Australian outback has been a creative muse for many distinguished artists. Nolan, Boyd and Olsen, for example, have all explored and shaped a national narrative based on their relationship with the land. Tim Storrier's perception and manipulation of the Australian landscape and its symbols, however, is distinct and unique from such interpretations. The evocative painting series 'Burning Rope' is a prime example of Storrier's concern with life's tensions and complexities, which are mirrored in Australia's extraordinary landscape.

As Storrier states, 'My vision of landscape…has to do with it being nothing more than a backdrop for theatre, a stage set for human drama - travel, dreams, disaster. I'm not interested in rendering the landscape per se.' 
(Catharine Lumby, Tim Storrier: The Art of the Outsider, pp.17-18)

Storrier thoughtfully composes and plans his works. Travelling into the isolated outback and setting up camp, sensing the boundless space, surveying the invariable horizon-line and observing the changes that subtly occur from daybreak to dusk. All of these elements are present in such works as Fire Line and Evening Line with the luminous fire-line stretching between two invisible points, its shadow playing along the ground, and the random pattern of the clouds all reverberate against the dark, arrow-straight horizon.

There is an interesting play of opposition and conflict within these poetic works.

The vibrancy of the dancing flames against the stillness and emptiness of the landscape, the destruction versus. the beauty of the flames, the artist's practice versus the spontaneity of nature. Storrier's symbolic choice of fire alludes to the natural and vital process of decay and renewal that occurs in bushfires that ravage Australia's environs. Fire also holds survival, sacrificial and mythical connections.

Storrier's use of colour and materials and his individual approach to art-making directly transmits to the viewer the dynamism, complexity, peril and absolute beauty of the Australian landscape and of life itself.  

Source: Catharine Lumby, Tim Storrier: The Art of the Outsider, Craftsman House, Sydney, 2000 
CH 2006