Port Augusta series

Power Augusta power plants north view. Oil on Panel, 30 x 40cm.

Port Augusta series

These paintings were done in 2013 in the region surrounding Port Augusta in South Australia. Port Augusta is a regional town in at the hed of the Spencer Gulf in South Australia. It is part of the "Iron Triangle" of industrial towns in the region, the other two being Whyalla and  Port Pirrie. Port Augusta is also adjacent to the ancient and arid landscape of the Flinders Rangers. 

Ogge painted these works during while working in the region on an environmental campaign to replace the ageing coal power plants with solar power as part of his work with the climate and energy NGO Beyond Zero Emissions. The "Repower Power Augusta" ultimately succeeded with the announcement that the project would go ahead in August 2017.

The works juxtapose the the ancient and striking landscape with the relics of (European) peoples attempts to exploit the landscape. The coal power plants, now closed were still operating when the the paintings were done, but are like the ruins of passing age. The Kanyaka Homestead only lasted two decades before it was abandoned by the settlers after a prolonged drought. In these works Ogge captures something of the melancholy but also the beauty of the ruins of our transient presence in this ancient landscape.