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Travel report: Where a hard life inspires art

🇬🇧 Because life in Australia’s Northern Territory is so hard and strenuous, it produces an incredible amount of art. Aboriginal art, of course, but also whitefella’s points of view. One of the best-known local artists outside the Aboriginal community is Carol „Kaz“ Randall, 66, from Katherine. During four days in the guest room of her stilt-supported tropical house, she gives me fascinating insights into her daily life, her marriage and the sources of her inspiration.

There is no path through the waist-high grass through which I follow Carol, only a red marker on a stone every few meters. We are somewhere in Nitmiluk National Park, away from the tourist attractions, which are closed anyway during the rainy season. On our way to a sacred Aboriginal watering hole. It’s a great honor for me that the artist, well-known in the Northern Territory and beyond, and her husband Andrew are showing me their favorite place in the northern Australian wilderness, where they find peace and inspiration. With shoes that squeak with wetness, we have to wade through the stream twice, following its course. The grass is accompanied by palm-like plants and shrubs with red flowers that resemble plumes or feather-dusters, Grevillea perhaps.

After twenty minutes or half an hour, we’re standing at the waterhole at the foot of a threatening-looking rock face, partly natural brown, partly blackened by rainwater. High above, indigenous people have painted a family in ochre. “We tried to climb up there once, but it’s very dangerous, very slippery”, says Andrew at the edge of the waterhole. It’s actually a pond, a natural rainwater catchment like the well known one at the foot of Uluru, with tadpoles and small fish, underwater plants, water lilies, and mighty tree trunks growing out of the water. Bubbles rise from the muddy bottom. An unearthly silence hangs over everything. We remove our clothes and wade into the water, which is cooler than the air, but not cold. Carol sits on a rock like a mermaid, while I drift and contemplate the rock painting. I meditate. I’m just a little worried that I might infect my ear canals in this stagnant water; it wouldn’t be the first time.

An artistic soul with flowing, gray-white hair

That mermaid Carol is an artistic soul is obvious at first glance. In the red and blue-dyed strands in her flowing, gray-white hair; in her brightly patterned dresses; in the blood-red lipstick on her loving face, which bears the traces of life. And in how attentively she observes. As we clambered here over hill and dale, and I was busy trying not to sprain my ankle, she repeatedly pointed out to Andrew and me the uniquely shaped stones along the stream bank and collected dried palm bark for weaving baskets. When she picked me up at the Greyhound station, she raved about my booking request: “I thought it was so inspiring when you wrote I would recognize you by the red backpack and your guitar! I absolutely have to take a photo of you with your gear, and then I want to paint a picture!”

On Facebook, Carol Randall calls herself an “arty social scientist”. She experiments with hand-painted prints, paper cutouts, and digitally printed fabrics. Her paintings are regularly nominated for the municipal cultural award in Katherine, where she lives and works, and were part of the Portrait of a Senior Territorian Art Award exhibition in Darwin, a three-hour drive away. They hang in local art galleries, the Mimi Aboriginal Art & Craft Gallery and the Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture Centre. One of her most famous works depicts an Aboriginal boy with a protective adult hand almost as large as his entire face resting on his chest. Disproportionately large, so very protective. Carol says she witnessed the scene at a funeral.

In the thermal springs with a pool noodle

She has dedicated an entire series of paintings to the thermal springs, Katherine’s main attraction. They are colorful, joyful summer scenes of people wearing goggles and holding on to swimming noodles in the hot springs, which are unfortunately largely cordoned off now. That’s because of the crocodiles, which can no longer be seen in the murky, swollen Katherine River during the rainy season. On the occasion of the 49th Katherine Prize exhibition in December 2024, Carol was quoted on Instagram: “I love the thermal springs! This unique place has so many layers. It represents pleasure and joy, it is simultaneously safe and accessible to all, but also deeply tranquil and timeless. Everyone connects their own, very vivid story with the hot springs and what they mean to them.” At the previous edition, where Carol Randall was represented with her work “Hot Springs & Noodles”, a judge named Kate said according to the event report on the award website: “In 10 or 15 years, this will probably be the work that sticks in my mind. It immediately caught my eye. It captures the very familiar hot springs of our local area, but in a way that I believe is universal. It evokes the feeling of happy days spent with others in a beautiful place.”

“Kaz” Randall also runs workshops called “Painting Stories with Artist Carol” and “Plein Air Painting and Drawing at Our Hot Springs”. These are designed to experience “the joy of colors and textures as nature unfolds” and to capture “stories based on our travels and life in the Northern Territory”. Anyone reading this without having been there will probably only skim the line. But those who have experienced the harshness of the Territory will have a different interpretation. Even though the thermometer in Katherine is only showing 32 degrees Celsius after the 45 degrees Celsius in Alice Springs, the perceived temperature according to the weather forecast is 42 degrees Celsius due to the high humidity. My clothes are completely soaked with sweat in no time. My tank top and linen pants hang on me, wet as a bath towel, and won’t dry on my body for the rest of the day. And these are the better months. “In November, you practically can’t leave the house”, says Andrew. “Just like you people in Germany snuggle up in the heated living room in winter, we stay next to the air conditioner and move as little as possible.”

In a treehouse under bamboo bushes

Carol and Andrew moved to Katherine, where Andrew grew up, fifteen years ago because they wanted to escape the rat race in Sydney. They bought a beautiful house on stilts in which they rent out several guest rooms. Framed by mighty jungle plants, bamboo bushes, and palm trees, it almost feels like a treehouse. “We planted all of them ourselves because it makes the climate more pleasant”, Andrew says. “But outside of the rainy season, we spend $1,000 a month on irrigation.” They eat and drink their morning tea and nectarines slowly caramelized in the oven on the large veranda, which is also a wonderful place to wait out the tropical downpours. Afterward, frogs croak under the bedroom window. When no rental income came in during the pandemic, it briefly looked as if Carol and Andrew would have to sell their house again. Their two dogs, Tiger and Spicy, guard it. Spicy spends all day chewing on a rubber toy, biting it instead of barking, making it squeak. He seems like a harmless eccentric, but when walking him, Carol has to be careful that he doesn’t attack any feral cats.

From the good side of life in Katherine, back to the hard [CONTINUE READING]

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Find the complete travel report from Katherine, Northern Territory, „Where a hard life inspires art“ (in English), here:

MaMagazine – Ausgabe No. 02/2025