New work from French born, artist Anne-France Fulgence (known as A.F.) is inspired by a confronting and brutal encounter she experienced on a remote dirt track in the blistering outback near White Cliff NSW.

On arriving here over 15 years ago Fulgence was profoundly moved by the landscape of Australia, an obsession which has seen her drive a barely roadworthy Renault to the furthest reaches of New South Wales.

On this particular January day, she stopped to help a breakdown – a meeting which became the basis for this new body of work.  She explains: “I shouldn't have been on that track, it was unsafe with sand and rocks and no one around. But, then I saw some hunters who were stranded; their Ute was missing a front wheel. I will never forget what I saw next: their dogs.

“They were hot, resting in cages at the back of the Ute under the terrible sun, their faces covered with cuts and caked in blood. Some of their wounds had metal stitches to hold the flesh together. I asked one of the guys what had happened.  He said ‘nothing mate, only a bit of pig hunting.’"

Fulgence was at once appalled, excited and fascinated by these huge, strong and fierce animals.  Soon after, travelling from Bourke to Wilcania, unable to drive any further in the 49 degree heat, she stopped at Tilpa pub. She describes the scene:

 “The car park was crowded with Utes and dogs in cages and chunks of dead wild boar to keep them occupied. I had plenty of time to study them. They were compelling and beautiful.  But I stayed well away from their masters who were getting drunk inside.”

Back in her Kangaroo Valley studio Fulgence began a series of large scale paintings based on the pig hunting dogs. These powerful images marry the uneasy and destructive relationship between man and the Australian landscape. Originally introduced by early settlers for food, feral pigs are now a devastating force against the land, native wildlife and farmers.  Guns, knives and ferocious dogs are used in an attempt to quell these beast and the resultant ecological disaster.

This tension is captured by Fulgence in paintings that are provocative, disturbing and deeply moving. She explains her process. “I start to paint a strange land under a black sky and with dead trees. Rivers, low, dry and bloody. The land is dying slowly, the trees are like sticks, the land is raped and devastated by the needs of the animals who try to survive within it.”

Then these almost apocalyptic landscapes, metamorphasise to become bold, full frontal portraits of the pig hunters’ dogs, which stare back at the viewer unflinchingly.  The loyalty and unconditional love of these creatures is contrasted with their brutal and bloody existence.

Fulgence says: “They transform themselves into something else because of the scale and the way I frame their face. Sometimes you will see a landscape before a dogface.  Sometimes one will see an abstract work, not a portrait.”

Anne-France Fulgence
2006