Design and Art Australia Online

Cindy Wider held a solo exhibition titled 'Rolling Hills Of White Flat’ at the Outback Regional Gallery Waltzing Matilda Centre in Winton Queensland in 2011.

Bush fires. Sweltering heat. Suffocating dirt and dust. Backbreaking manual labour. Livestock and farmland. In an atmosphere where these aspects of life are commonplace, one would expect to see rugged cowboys and farmhands battling nature’s elements in order to complete their work; however, feminine, graceful, stylish ladies rarely emerge as images typically associated with these coarse environments. Cindy Wider, in her collection of works titled Rolling Hills of White Flat, examines the lives of farmers’ wives in her continual journey to formulate the complex definition of what it means to be a woman. Acting as her muse, Wider’s eldest sister, Wendy, a wife and mother living and working on a cereal and sheep farm in rural South Australia, provides the inspiration for this compilation of art. “I wanted to celebrate her life and bring recognition to her and farmer’s wives in general,” Wider explains of the origins of this latest body of work.

Rolling Hills of White Flat examines the reality and fantasy of life on the land from a feminine perspective. Seeking to inject high levels of authenticity into each piece, Wider left the life of a cosmopolitan artist to live with her sister and family on the farm. She wanted to learn, first hand, how her sister managed to overcome the struggles of living and working in such a harsh and traditionally masculine atmosphere while still maintaining a strong sense of femininity and personal identity.

The exhibition was officially opened by Muttaburra grazier, Mrs Ann Ballinger, on Friday 1 April, and runs until 29 April 2011.