Long, tapering lines which elegantly overlap one another in many of Barbara Weir’s paintings represent the grass which was found abundantly at Utopia until the introduction of cattle grazing in the early decades of the 20^th Century. The botanical name for this grass is Portulaca oleracea.

The grass has been important to the Aboriginal people for thousands of years because it bears small, black seeds which are ground up to make flour. Barbara Weir does not paint these seeds, but she paints the grass itself. The colours she uses reflect the state of the grass in nature. When she paints it green, the grass is young and growing. When she paints it yellow, red and black, the grass is being burned in a bushfire. When she paints it white and grey, it’s the aftermath of a bushfire. Sometimes she includes some red in an otherwise white or off-white grass painting, which indicates there is still some fire burning.