ARTIST STATEMENT
Three of Australia’s leading landscape photographers Paul Hoelen, Scott McCook and Sheldon Pettit have joined forces to present a provocative visual exploration of our relationship to land as a resource. On one level we can admire the design, structure and industriousness of our ability to extract what we need to support our quality of life, yet we also need to acknowledge some of the impact these processes can have. Many resource driven practices in Australia take place in restricted access areas and hence remain hidden from view and beyond our collective sight. By taking to the air, these altered lands are unveiled and presented here with a striking visual strength for us to both witness and reflect on their unnerving beauty.
BACKGROUND
Most of these images were captured from various flights around remote areas of Western Australia, largely from Cessna planes at heights ranging from 1500-4000 feet. The subject material ranges from salt evaporation ponds and algae farms and through to a variety of mining activities and tailings dams.