It's mid-afternoon on a week day and 10 women are gathered in the small studio behind Amanda Johnson's gallery on Argent Street in downtown Broken Hill.

Johnson, a Broken Hill native, has been painting for the past 30 years and her art has deep roots in the city.

"I think the urban landscape in Broken Hill is really interesting. It's quirky, Broken Hill. You wouldn't find that in too many other places," Johnson says.

As she says, where else but in Broken Hill in far western NSW do artists' paintbrushes and miners' pick axes sit side by side?

From the Brushmen of the Bush painters Pro Hart, Jack Absalom and their peers to the modern journeyman painters of today, Broken Hill has developed from a mining town where "people paint a little bit" to "an artist town that has a couple of mines".

With the Broken Hill art community very open to visitors, if passersby drop in on Johnson's art classes, she'll show them a few tricks with acrylic paint and they'll walk out with a tube of paint as a bonus at the end.

"Broken Hill is great. Everybody paints whether they can or not, most can," Marguerite, a local pensioner, laughs from behind her easel during the art class.

Most artists' "bread and butter" commissions come from locals with an eye for a nice painting. But tourists have learnt about the art too - tourism figures are expected to exceed expectations this financial year.

Bruce Tindale, who manages the city's Regional Art Gallery, agrees that the place has a special feel to it.

"...a lot of artists come here and they're just taken in by its interesting desert landscape," he says.

"Mining towns can be tough places and Broken Hill has a pretty colourful history and the artists add another dimension to that."

For years artseekers have first visited the galleries of the Brushmen of the Bush, Pro Hart and Jack Absalom when they get to town.

And every good tourist has also heard of the legend of Pro, a man who loved and cherished his community and "did an awful lot for Broken Hill".

His benevolence continues on today in the form of his wife Raylee Hart who eagerly supports local art competitions with donations.

A walk into Pro Hart's gallery is a step into his life. His paintings adorn every wall and even more so nowadays since the family decided to replace Pro's renowned collection of masters' paintings with his own work. His car collection sits under cover in the front courtyard.

There's even a replica studio complete with an unfinished painting and Pro's work jacket hanging on the back of his chair so that visitors get an authentic view of what the painter's working day was like.

Meanwhile, in Jack Absalom's gallery a world-class opal collection takes pride of place in the centre of the exhibition space. A permanent display of landscape paintings lines the rice-papered walls of the main room and the gallery acts as a tribute to the outback that inspires him.

Pro Hart's daughter, Julie, has continued her father's painting style and has her own gallery in town (Julie Hart Gallery). Just as Pro's gallery shows works by his children, Julie's gallery shows paintings by her father and even displays an easel where the two of them used to work side by side and a painting that they worked on together.

Raylee says, "out of all the children (Julie) is the one that got Pro's mantle for painting. Julie painted next to her father since she was five years old".

Other artists also pay homage to organisations that are essential to people in the Bush - such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Satirical artist Howard William Steer developed a "gossamer-winged" flying doctor image after the Flying Doctor Service came to his rescue when he lost his fingers in a work accident.

Now, Howard donates paintings to raise funds for the service and is very quick to explain what the Flying Doctor means in places like Broken Hill and how much he enjoys supporting the local icon.

"Any time they ask me for a painting, I supply paintings to them. I've had shows at Flying Doctor outlets in Western Australia and I paint on the propellers of the flying doctor planes. I've painted on aeroplanes; saw blades, push bikes, pianos...It doesn't take long to raise a million dollars," Howard says.

Out in the Living Desert Reserve, visitors can feast their eyes on possibly the most photographed attraction the Silver City has to offer - the Broken Hill Sculpture Symposium.

Created in 1993 by a team of artists from all over the world including local Aboriginal artist Badger Bates, the sculptures are most breathtaking at sunrise and sunset.

Another must see is the Silver City Art Centre which is home to the largest acrylic painting on canvas in the world by Peter Andrew Anderson, known as Ando to locals.

The painting, known as The Big Picture, measures an astonishing 12m by 100m and took two and a half years to complete.

Ando's brother Chris Anderson is the resident silversmith at the Silver City Art Centre and visitors can either watch him work through a window looking into his workshop or buy one of his creations in the well-stocked gift shop.

"Broken Hill silver is the best in the world," Chris says.

The Big Picture is more than just a large painting; it's a map of Broken Hill and a point of reference for public record.

"It took six months to put the canvas up into place. There's just over eight tonnes of paint going on the canvas and it takes in 17 landmarks around Broken Hill from the Flinders Range right through to the Darling River. Behind the actual painting itself, there are 16 hydraulic rams which tension it 24 hours a day," says Chris.

But there's more to the scene than painting. From the mosaic art of Julie and Rod Horsburgh at Jarah Mosaics to the landscape photography of Boris Hlavica at Images of Australia, this quirky little outback town has something for everyone.

When most visitors step into Ian Lewis and Wendy Martins' Bush 'N Beyond gallery, their eyes are drawn to the large painted mannequin in the centre of the room.

"I painted this for a women's exhibition to show the dilemma faced by women in the outback who have cancer," artist Wendy Martin explains. "The distances they have to travel and what they have to go through and I called it Born into this Landscape because all of us women out here in Broken Hill are born into this landscape."

White's Mineral Art Gallery is where the two sides of Broken Hill meet. Here former miner Kevin "Bushy" White uses the minerals that brought prosperity to the city to create pictures that document its history.

"Don't be afraid to touch them, you can't hurt them. Those are made from pure Broken Hill minerals," Bushy says.

Along with a lesson in mineral art, a trip to Bushy's gallery will provide visitors with a comprehensive history of Broken Hill from his unique perspective as a miner and a mineral artist.

Artist Albert Woodroffe, who splits his time between Broken Hill and Silverton, says, "being a artist in Broken Hill is a profession, some of the kids at the high school have studied Broken Hill artists as part of their curriculum and I would say that would happen in no other area in Australia which is a great thing.

"My favourite thing to tell the young ones is once you start painting in this country you're never out of work and it's true, it's just up to you to get better at it."

 

If you go:

Fly to Broken Hill with REX airlines, visit:www.rex.com.au/

Stay at The Miners Arms, 82 Crystal Street, Broken Hill, NSW 2880. Call (08) 8087-7830 or visit: www.theminersarms.com.au/.

Eat at Willyama Pickwicks Restaurant, Iodide Street, Broken Hill, NSW 2880. Call (08) 8088-3355 or Broken Earth, Federation Way, Broken Hill (08) 8087-1318.

Tour with Silver City Tours, 380 Argent Street, Broken Hill, NSW 2880. Call (08) 8087-6956 or visit: www.silvercitytours.com.au/.

* The writer was a guest of Tourism New South Wales.

 

AAP