Byford artist Stephen White has loaned his painting Summer Day to the Byford and Districts Country Club.
The painting is 2.1 metres by 1.2 metres and hangs in the foyer of the newly opened club.
Inspired by a typical Australian farming scene Mr White said he took almost four months to complete the painting.
“The painting is of a group of ancient Marri Gums that I stumbled across when walking on the Darling Scarp back in 2011,” he said.
“The cattle had been laying under the shade of the trees and moved away when I approached.
“I wanted to capture the intensity of the light and the strong shadows that are part of our summer landscape.”
Mr White said he got into art at a very young age winning a number of awards and topping the state in art as part of his exams when he was at Bunbury Senior High School in the 1960s.
“After many years in business and building shopping centres I finally got back to painting a few years ago at the age of 61,” he said.
“I was born in 1949 and lived in an old shack with a dirt floor, hessian bags for windows and a Coolgardie safe as a fridge.
“I would not have swapped it for the world, those days were rough, as a kid we had the whole countryside in which to roam barefoot and my landscapes are all from around the Darling Scarp reflecting my love of the countryside.”
