This painting featured on the invitation to the 2014 exhibition, and was a centrepiece for the show. It captures a sparkling winter’s morning at the gardens, viewed from above Station Street across to the western boundary of Nelson Road and Box Hill Hospital. At the top of the picture, a strip of winter-blue sky contrasts with the whites and tans of the hospital buildings and office blocks of Box Hill, partly screened by various trees. In the top right corner are a couple of con-trails from planes travelling to or from Tullamarine airport. The park is laid out in frosty pale greens and yellows, richly populated by trees, some in varying states of autumnal loss of leaves, and criss-crossed by asphalt paths, lined with red brick pavers. In the foreground of the park is a small orchard of fruit trees, some just starting to blossom. A jogger with her hair in a bun, a mother and her school age young son, and some small dogs travel along the Station Street footpath while a few other people wander along the paths across the park. A pair of old men supervise two young children near the duck pond in the middle distance to the right, while a grandmother watches her charge on the play equipment in the middle of the park. Other incidental events create vignettes in between the trees. From the automatic toilet block to the lower left of the painting, emanates the lyrics from a muzak tune that plays when the toilet is occupied. The print text of the lyrics winds its way through the branches above: ‘What the world needs now is love sweet love, no, not just for some, but for everyone.’

City of Whitehorse Art Collection