Elizabeth Barsham (formerly painting as E.M. Christensen) is an award-winning artist working in Tasmania, Australia's island state.
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Have you seen Elizabeth Barsham's new book?
Thirty years ago Tasmania's mistress of the strange held her first solo exhibition. To celebrate, she has produced a book of paintings spanning her entire career.
This brand new hard-cover book, The Caravan Moves On contains a selection of one hundred photographs of Elizabeth Barsham's stunningly beautiful paintings, with descriptive comments by the artist.
Mail order:
Price $54.95 plus $15.00 postage and handling to anywhere within Australia.
Overseas customers:
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Hannah Herrmann-Payn's short documentary about Elizabeth Barsham's Tasmanian Gothic was shown at the Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival in Launceston in November 2015.
Tasmanian Gothic on ABC Open
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Elizabeth Barsham talks to Greg Nolan about her art:
youtube video
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On 18th May 2014, ABC 936 local radio played an interview in which Chris Wisbey and Elizabeth Barsham talked about her life, her home and her art. Listen to it here:
link to interview
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 Song of the Mill; 58 cm x 41 cm acrylic on paper 2016
Song of the Mill is my contribution to Metamorphosis, an international exhibition at the annual Ripattoni Art Festival in Italy.
More information: Gotico Visonaria blog
Elizabeth's uniquely imaginative oil paintings are an emotional expression of her ancestral connection to the landscape and its people. Often based on old family photographs, they feature mysterious figures against a backdrop of rugged mountains, impenetrable forest and crumbling buildings in an unsettling but hauntingly beautiful mixture of nostalgia, gothic romanticism and humour.
A descendant of the first convict settlers, she has also written several books and articles about Tasmanian family history and was the first Tasmanian to publish a book about a convict ancestor (Thomas Burbury, Pioneer of Tasmania by E.M. Christensen and W. Sinclair, Victoria, 1979).
Barsham does not dwell on lurid details of the colonial penal system but admires the determination and fortitude shown by pioneering men and women who endured terrible hardships in creating the townships, farms and industries enjoyed today. She is passionate about the need to explore and record what traces remain of their lives, while protecting both the natural and built environment.
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Ghosts in the Landscape, a playful assemblage of found objects and mixed-media sculptures that extend Barsham's painting McRae's Hill into the real world, was shown in the Lightbox, Salamanca Arts Centre, Salamanca Place, Hobart in September, 2015.
more pictures
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After the Mine, oil on canvas, 91 cm x 91 cm, was a finalist in the 2015 Glover Prize, Australia's richest prize for landscape painting. more pictures
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