Page 7 - Australian_How_To_Paint

INSIGHT

hen Ludij came to
Australia with her family
Wat the age of six, she first
landed at Derby in Western Australia
– a far cry from the city life of
Amsterdam. Finally disembarking
from the ship at Fremantle, the family
flew to Cairns via Adelaide,
Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
On the flight from Brisbane to Cairns,
the plane stopped frequently at towns
all the way up the coast. Ludij recalls
that the further north they went, the
smaller the airports became.
Initially painting in oils, Ludij
Peden’s subject matter evolved from
the rivers, creeks, canefields,
mountains and coastline of tropical
North Queensland to stockmen, water
buffalo and escarpments when she
and her husband moved to the
Northern Territory.
Ludij is not really sure when her
fascination with houses began, but
losing their family home in Darwin’s
infamous Cyclone Tracy probably
emphasised the importance of housing
as part of the Australian lifestyle.
When she moved to Brisbane in 1975
she had already begun to paint the
occasional house. Her first Brisbane
exhibition, however, featured historic
hotel buildings around Queensland
and northern New South Wales – it
was entitled ‘Pub Crawl’.
Ludij moved back to Cairns with
her husband and two small sons in
1978, and was horrified to discover
that many of the old houses were
being demolished to make way for
blocks of units. She decided to ‘do her
bit’ to preserve history by painting as
many of the old Australian houses and
cottages as she could. She also began
to travel through the Queensland

Australian Ho to Paint 7