COUNTRY living inspires these artists, writes SARAH HUDSON

When renowned Australian artist Wendy Stavrianos set up her studio in a shearing shed on her Ravenswood South property, the locals were not happy.

"They couldn't understand why I'd want to use a perfectly good shed for art," says Wendy, who is recognised as one of Australia's most prominent female artists.

"I understand now why they thought that but I set up anyway and there was a time shearing would be going on around me."

For Wendy, like many artists, being based in the country is vital to her work.

Her partner, Craig Gough, is also an artist, while other country-based artists include David Larwill on the Mornington Peninsula and Robert Jacks in Harcourt.

Wendy, who has lived in her 1872 farm house for more than 20 years, says the peace and isolation attract her and inform her work.

"I love the aloneness, I crave the quiet. And just being able to see beautiful things.

"The city and country is always a dilemma in my work. For me the city represents fear and the country space.

"I believe we are becoming more and more disconnected with the sacred and ancient."

Gold is a strong colour used in her paintings.

"I have fields of gold, I always use gold, orange and burnt orange and that's because I live in a landscape I can't be divorced from, which is becoming drier and drier.

"I'm now trying to use more blues for water and estuaries - as a compensation."

Harcourt-based Robert Jacks - one of Australia's most significant abstract artists - coincidentally lives close to Wendy, and they also attended art school together. He says while he can at times miss friends and exhibitions in Melbourne, this becomes "repetitive - it loses its interest".

"I know a lot of artists, the more famous they are the more they want to leave the city, mainly because of the social pressures: too many long lunches.

"I always used to wonder why Monet moved out of Paris but I grew to understand why. There's a common thread among artists moving out of the city."

Robert's 15ha property, bought as an apple orchard 20 years ago, was initially a weekender.

One day his family decided they "didn't want to drive back to Melbourne any more".

He says the landscape filters into his abstract art.

"I think it has changed it a lot, it's softened it in some ways. We have a big garden and that can be seen in my paintings.

"There's less colour in the garden now but it still creeps in."

Currently he is working on a nocturnal series.

"Late at night there's not a light on in the area and I look out to the sky and it is so clear and full of stars.

"I remember walking through the orchard one night and there was a wonderful feeling of being alone in it."

David Larwill grew up on a cattle and sheep farm in Ballarat in the 1950s, before moving to the Mornington Peninsula as a boy.

While he established his career in Melbourne - as part of the experimental, abstract expressionist Roar movement of artists - he says moving to Somers on the Peninsula 17 years ago saved his sanity.

"It's given me time to stop getting so stroppy about how seemingly pathetic the art scene in Melbourne is," David says.

"They think if they screw up a piece of paper and throw it on the floor they can call it art. Some young artists have ridiculous concepts.

"If you're serious about being an artist you've got to be happy and enjoy it. I think it's hard for the young ones now in Melbourne."

He says as a young artist he would never have contemplated leaving Melbourne.

But now he could never imagine going back.

"Being a country person I was very glad to move down here and get some horizon back."