"Ned Kelly Reaches Mars" is a series of works made on paper with Conte' and charcoal. Ned Kelly was a bushranger in Australia during the 1870's. Kelly was hanged in 1880 and his death marked the end of the bushranging era. He has gone down in history as something of a working class hero who fought the law. He had visions of establishing a republic in the North-East of the state of Victoria. He has also inspired many artists - painters and writers especially. Artists too have challenged society from time to time and a few have earned the reputation of "outlaw". Artwork is rarely anywhere near as perilous to the artist as a real gun battle is to a real outlaw. Artists are cowards when it comes to physical violence and they prefer to take their aggression out on themselves and their loved ones. However, the spirit and emotion of historical events is kept alive by art and art alone. The effect of these relived emotions cannot be underestimated.
In the 1940's the Australian painter Sidney Nolan made his first series of paintings depicting episodes from the life and times of Ned Kelly. He continued to reprise the Kelly theme throught the second half of the twentieth century. Sidney Nolan has helped keep the spirit of Ned Kelly alive. Sid's images often show Kelly on horseback in his distinctive armour helmet roving through the lush and hilly Victorian forest. Ned is pursued by the police force over the decades in Nolan's paintings (drawings and etchings too). In these images Ned gradually moves further and further away from North-East Victoria into dryer and sparser landscapes. Stretching time and space Ned is shown drifting North and West into regions where he was never known to have gone.
In the year 2000, 1500 kilometres North-West of "Kelly Country" in the Simpson Desert of Central Australia, the Mars Team began their Earthly rehearsals for conditions on the red planet. In late 2003 NASA's Mars Rover reached the parched red planet and was deployed on the surface. The vignettes eventually assembled from image data sent back by the Rover of the surface suggested the mask of Ned's quintessential armour - Ned's defiance of the law smudges space travel with human concerns. These smudges are not the shadows cast by Martian rocks baking in the sun. They are not the trails of dust flowing around objects in the Martian wind. They are not aligned with the electrostatic properties of the Martian soil shifting mysteriously. Rather, these are the smudges of human emotion made against the sterile screen of scientific presentation. Emotions erupt unpredictably and travel at the speed of light. Emotions contaminate everything and are the key to many doors.
Some believe another man was hanged in 1880 in Ned's place and that Ned disappeared
into regions unknown North-West to live out the remainder of his life anonymously.
I happen to be one of those believers.
references:
"Ned Kelly - 27 Paintings By Sidney Nolan" by Robert Melville, Thames And Hudson, London 1964
"Sidney Nolan - Australia" by Elwyn Lynn and Sidney Nolan, Bay Books, Sydney 1979
"Australian Painters" by James Gleeson, Landsdowne Press, Sydney 1976
"Australian Bushrangers" edited Jane Barnaby, Cassell Australia 1973
"Man With A Millstone" review by Bernard Smith, The Age newspaper, Melbourne April 6th 2002
www.nasa.com