When Arthur and Yvonne Boyd gave their Shoalhaven property, Bundanon, to the nation in 1993, the federal government was reluctant to accept the gift. Rather than a valuable cultural asset, it must have seemed as if the Boyds were off-loading an expensive liability in a remote location.
Situated in bushland outside Nowra, the property has been menaced by both fire and flood. In 2019, the bushfires came perilously close, and the recent downpours have left their mark as well. This meant that any new buildings had to be able to withstand extreme conditions and architect Kerstin Thompson has delivered the goods.
The show takes its lead from the costume and set designs Boyd created in 1963, for Robert Helpmann’s production of, for the Royal Ballet, Covent Garden. In Greek mythology, Elektra was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. She was expelled from the palace and married off to a commoner because of her hatred of the Queen and her lover who murdered the King upon his return from the Trojan War and usurped the throne.
This must have appealed to that feral streak in Boyd’s own artistic personality which led him to paint so many strange, visionary images. In later years, these works were overshadowed by a long procession of Shoalhaven landscapes, many of them showing the dullness born of over-production.
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