By TANIA PHILLIPS
THREE Foot Six, The Sunlander is an exhibition by Glen O’Malley and Ian Smith that captures some of the stories and character of Queensland’s rail culture.
The exhibition is the result of a lifetime of train travel. Both artists made many excursions throughout the state, as children with parents and later alone or with family and friends. More recent excursions have been to relive those journeys and to capture the character of trains, the passengers and the views from the carriage windows.
The exhibition records The Sunlander, a service that started in July 1953 and operated once a week on the North Coast line, between Brisbane and Cairns, through to December 2014. There are also images of the first Tilt Train from Cairns, and the Gulflander on the Normanton-Croydon line, which is the only Queensland rail line not connected to the rest of the state.
Brisbane-born O’Malley’s first clear memory is of his fourth birthday travelling from Brisbane to Townsville on The Sunlander.
O’Malley recalls childhood rail excursions to Shorncliffe on the train.
“I took my sons on the same trip to celebrate their birthdays,” he reminisced.
“I also remember a memorable 24-hour journey through summer floods in the guard’s van of a goods train from Bundaberg to Gladstone with only a packet of boiled peanuts to share with my girlfriend.”
The photographs were taken during several excursions and many were taken on the Sunshine route. In 2003, O’Malley drove from Cairns to Brisbane photographing trains along the way, and then travelled back on The Sunlander with artist friend Ian Smith.
Smith was born in Cairns and now lives in Brisbane. He has exhibited at Warwick Art Gallery several times and has a work in the Southern Downs Regional Council collection.
Smith was painting at a young age, and his first views of Queensland’s distinct and diverse character were from and in a train. These early journeys informed his interest in man’s impact on the landscape and the challenge of the long distance.
The paintings and photographs conjure up the sounds and smells, excitement and monotony of train travel. The images capture the sounds of heavy, wooden doors slamming, rattling carriages and the squeal of the brakes. The artists also focused on the people travelling in the trains, the cold platforms at night, the goodbye kiss and views from the window of cane fields and bush rolling past.
The historic final journey of The Sunlander, Queensland’s longest running service, departed from Brisbane on Sunday 28 December 2014 and returned southbound from Cairns to Brisbane for its last official journey on Wednesday 31 December 2014.
At 61 years of age, The Sunlander was renowned both nationally and internationally as an iconic rail adventure.
The Sunlander and the other services are an important part of the artists’ experience and form a significant part of Queensland’s shared memory.
Warwick Art Gallery director Karina Devine is delighted with the exhibition and its significance to the Southern Downs.
“The exhibition will appeal to anyone who loves trains and train travel,” Ms Devine said.
“I am looking forward to listening to the artists tell the stories behind the images when they visit Warwick.”
O’Malley and Smith will be in Warwick on Thursday 29 January at 10.30am to share their experience.
