Linda is behind the Precinct's latest exhibition Retreat, Regeneration, Reflection which runs until Sunday, April 3. The photographs capture the destruction and rebirth through nature at her Clandulla property near Kandos. This is her first ever photographic exhibition.

The Clandulla property, purchased by Linda along with a group of friends in the '80s, existed as a retreat, a place to leave the noise of the city and reconnect with nature. Its proximity to the Rylstone/Kandos area also served as the catalyst for a long-lasting relationship with the community.

In 2019 fires swept through the property and destroyed large swathes of land and following the fires, Linda found herself in COVID lockdown in the area. Linda's documentation in photos of the transformed landscape, are displayed on the walls of the gallery space in vibrant colour and completely untouched from their original form.

"It's really quite extraordinary, because it in some ways it's incredibly beautiful, but it's also extraordinarily devastating, because it doesn't look anything like - the last time I was there, actually. So when you're driving in, it's so awesome," she said.

"You can't believe what you're looking at. I'm pretty sure that with what's happening with the floods and things like that, it's just... I don't know what's worse. It's all equally devastatingly - extraordinary things to deal with in your life."

Linda said the land which she has known for decades has changed in ways she's never seen in her lifetime.

"It's radically changed. And what was amazing, and what several people have asked is - the photographs are all from my Samsung phone. Because going into lockdown there, I didn't have a camera. All those things were somewhere else. So it was pretty extraordinary," she said.

"It just became - to document it and to watch the different things happening and to watch the green appear.

"The landscape and the cliffs are so beautiful. And it became a meditation actually.

"To be able to walk all over the property, hundreds of acres and things like that, and be able to documented to photograph it at all different times of the day. That became my visual diary. And I thought I can look at this later and use them to paint because some of them look quite abstract, which is what I really loved."

On Saturday, March 19 Linda hosted a 'Colourful Recovery day' at the Precinct in addition to her current exhibition.

Hosted by the Mudgee Arts Precinct and Council in conjunction with Resilience NSW, the Colourful Recovery open day included a combination of workshops and an exhibition to create, learn and connect and a visit from the local fire brigade who parked their trucks outside the gallery on Market Street.

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