Art from the heart speeds up recovery

Rob Lockyear | 21st December 2008

TELLING the stories of the land on which he grew up has brought Aboriginal artist Dale Weston to a place he did not think he would be.

And while his paintings lined the walls at the opening of his biggest solo exhibition on Saturday, Mr Weston took the opportunity to thank the people who got him there.

When CRS Australia rehabilitation consultant Kathryn McKewin met Mr Weston, all he could do was walk on flat ground and use his hands after a serious motorcycle accident had wrecked his body.

“This bloke came in and everything said his body was broken but he had something,” Ms McKewin said.

“He had a fire in his belly.”

Ms McKewin said she was sceptical at first of the Collingwood Park artist's chances of benefiting from the vocational rehabilitation program but when she saw his drawings she knew he would go far.

“He used to use butcher's paper and pencils he had taken from Macca's,” she said. “Dale just operates from his heart.”

Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale said Mr Weston was an example of how someone could bounce back after experiencing the tough side of life.

“This is the best Aboriginal art I have ever seen,” Cr Pisasale said. “Come here and you will be blown away.”

Mr Weston said he owed a lot to Ms McKewin and the mayor.

“There is no way in the world I could have done this without these two,” Mr Weston said.

Friend and fellow artist Sally Harrison said it was the connection to the land that was the driving force behind paintings like Mr Weston's.

“With this kind of painting you are led,” Ms Harrison said.

“It is a silent place and is something higher than us that leads you to do what you do.”

She said since Mr Weston had started painting, his acknowledgment of himself as an Aboriginal had grown.