Gary James aka "Spook 

To Hume It May Concern 

- Hume Highway Humour - 

21 - 30 July 2022

A recent excursion on “The Hume” had us shuddering at the memories of those wild rides between Melbourne and Sydney in the 1970s. Taking the old road – which was a sort of Ghost Train ride for those too far from either of the two Luna Parks, would find us following the hallucinatory tail-lights of frightening freight filled trucks through endless single lane stretches of tarmac – unsure whether the twinkling indicators of the juggernauts were telling you that it was safe to overtake, or whether some maniacal truckie was in fact luring you to a Hume Doom - a head on crash with a south bound semi. Will we ~ won’t we pass?

Waiting ...waiting ...waiting ... for that longed for sign - “Passing Lane Ahead”.

Out past Albury and the imitation Ettamogah Pub, white mile posts evaporating in the dusk, their heads almost concealed by yellowing grass stalks and the magenta Axminster of Patterson’s Curse – Then ~ Half Way – the Road House at Tarcutta and a “burger with the lot” (no pineapple), before going on and up through God’s Own Country – the rolling hills in and around Gundagai.

Jugiong, Gunning, Yass and then Goulbourn, without the safety-net of breakfasting at the Paragon Cafe – “Spook”, with unbridled vision, brings all this and much, much more to life – as only “Spook” can – in these magical, fantastical inspired paintings of recollected road trips on the adored and abhorred old Hume Highway.