PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Europe Purchased from Gallery Thirty Three, Wanaka, 2009

Grahame Sydney ONZM is best known for his landscapes of Central Otago. His work spans four decades and encompasses oils, egg tempera, watercolours, lithographs, etching, photography and, more recently, film. Rarely exhibiting, Sydney's works are held in the collections of the major galleries and museums of New Zealand and in private collections through-out the world.

Extract from: Timeless Land by Grahame Sydney. Central Otago is Grahame Sydney country. Rough Ridge is part of it. His painting, Rock of Ages, features this freakish stone creature, a remarkable schist outcrop, standing in the fading light of the quiet hour, just before the darkness of night swallows the lonely landscape.

High above hangs the moon, just a sliver and barely visible. In the far distance, where the real mountains rear, pale-orange light fades with the promise of a clear night and a fine day to follow. Grahame's eye was not only drawn to the remarkable shape of this ancient eroded geological feature.

The monster stood sentinel over much more recent events. Beside the Old Dunstan Road on Rough Ridge, this monumental tor has been weathering for thousands of years, he explains in notes on the paintings in his latest book, Grahame Sydney Paintings 1974-2014. Platoons of foot-slogging diggers must have passed it on their long, optimistic trudge to the Dunstan Goldfields in the early 1860s rush, seeing it exactly as we do today.

The ragged ranges in the distance are the southern end of the Remarkables and their neighbour Garvie Range. I know this country well, I photographed and filmed it often, but this is the only painting I've ever done of it. - Grahame Sydney