Artwork 50 Stirling Percussion
Section 18
Mountain refuges
Stirling Range National Park, Western Australia, Western Australia
- 1. Kingia australis (drumstick grass tree)
from the artist
The third painting from the Stirling Range is again from Bluff Knoll, but near the lower reaches. It is Stirling Percussion, which won first prize in “works on paper”, Albany Art Prize 1999, and the unique plant featured in it is found only in Western Australia—and shown here regenerating after fire.
We were fortunate to visit a year or so following the fire, and witnessed a profusion of flowering “drumstick grass trees” (Kingia australis). These are so unusual that they have a whole genus (Kingia) to themselves. At the time this artwork was completed, Kingia was formally grouped with the grass trees in Xanthorrhoeaceae—but subsequently has been moved to not just a new family, but an entirely different order!
