Di Broomhall, Diary of a Weatherwatcher #40, 2024. Image courtesy of Fiona Little
Di Broomhall
Gallery 2
Friday 21 February - Sunday 16 March
Opening Thursday 20 February 2025, 6pm - 8pm
Coming from a childhood family strongly connected to the land, gardening, sport and fishing; rain gauges, barometers, sky gazing and weather watching are second nature to Di Broomhall. She eats her meals outside in her eucalyptus garden taking note of the weather, the light and the atmosphere.
This diary of the weather in her eucalyptus garden spans a period of 12 months from March 2023 to March 2024.
The pages were set up to indicate the same place, palette, scale and proportion. Indicators of change and stability with 3 vertical lines and 3 horizontal lines against which to work were always drawn in before painting.
Stable elements such as the sky, sun, tree trunks and ground were, for the most part, located in the same spot in each diary entry. With these control elements in place a diary entry was made more or less weekly, sometimes more often if there was a particularly special weather event.
Colour, light, atmosphere and sensation were prioritised in this diary.
About the Artist
Di Broomhall is nomadic in her art interests and methods. She is an art historian, art theory and practice researcher, an Arts Professional and an empirical practitioner with visual arts media. She has academic degrees in Art History and Education, a degree in Ceramics and a MAVis with Distinctions in Painting. Di has studied in residencies in Italy, Egypt and at the Thanka Painting School in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Her studio practice draws on research methods of developing and testing of ideas, materials, conditions and techniques. Contemporary and historical references, empirical research, explorations of perceptual and experienced situations are documented and tested in practical ways.
For this body of work her fundamental question was:
‘What is the weather like here and now, in this place, and how am I experiencing this?’
