Painting Western Australia: Translating Space, Colour, and Quiet Beauty
This piece became the next artwork in my This is Australia series, a collection that began as a personal creative break between commissions and gradually grew into something much bigger.
Western Australia became one of the most personal pieces in the entire series.
Shortly after our first child was born, we made the decision to move across the country. He was nine months old, it was peak COVID, and life in Brisbane suddenly felt small and uncertain. Most of my husband’s family lived in Western Australia, and something in us knew it was time for a change.
So we packed up everything and moved to Kalgoorlie, a regional mining town six hours inland from Perth.
Living in the red dirt
Kalgoorlie was unlike anywhere I had ever lived.
It was remote in a way that is hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it. There was nothing for kilometres beyond the edge of town. Just red dirt, scrub, saltbush, and open sky. It felt vast and quiet and deeply Australian.
The mornings were always my favourite. The air was crisp even in summer, and our front garden filled with native birds, their chatter becoming our daily soundtrack. By midday, the heat would settle in, dry and intense, but those early hours always felt calm and grounding.
Living there changed the way I saw the landscape. It wasn’t something distant or romanticised. It was real. It was home.
Western Australia also became part of our family story in a deeper way, because it was where our daughter was born. That alone tied me to the place in a way that will always stay with me.
The contrast of Western Australia
One of the most striking things about Western Australia is its contrast.
Kalgoorlie was red, dry, and rugged, but just a few hours’ drive away, Esperance revealed something completely different. The sand was impossibly white, the water clear and blue, and the coastline felt untouched and pristine.
The shift between those two landscapes felt almost surreal.
During my years designing 4WD magazines, I had also spent countless hours working with photographs from across Western Australia. Places like Ningaloo Reef, Rottnest Island, and the pink salt lakes had already shaped my perception of the state long before I saw any of them myself. I came to understand Western Australia as a place of extremes, where desert, reef, coastline, and bush all coexist.
Translating Western Australia into artwork
When I began building the Western Australia composition, I drew from both lived experience and the visual memories I had collected over the years.
The red dirt of Kalgoorlie became the emotional centre of the piece. Around it, I layered elements that represented the state’s diversity and scale, from coastal landmarks to native wildlife, allowing the composition to reflect both its physical contrasts and its emotional weight.
This artwork felt different to create. It wasn’t just about representing a place. It was about honouring a chapter of our lives.
Even now, back in Queensland, something about painting that red dirt still catches me. It still feels familiar.
It still feels like home.
A defining piece in the series
By the time I completed Western Australia, the This is Australia series had taken on a deeper meaning.
Each state was no longer just an illustration. It was a record of memory, experience, and connection.
Western Australia became one of the most important pieces in the collection, because it captured a time in our lives defined by change, growth, and belonging.
You can follow the ongoing This is Australia series and see the remaining states over on Instagram at @laura.hamzic.art
What happens next
I’ll be releasing This is Australia: Western Australia as a fine art print as part of the growing collection, with plans already unfolding for future releases inspired by the series.
If you’d like to be the first to know when prints and future releases become available, you can join my email list below and I’ll keep you updated as the collection continues to evolve.