Still Life Triptych No. 5

"Wolfhagen has often seen or felt a visual equivalence between the macro and the micro, between the vast geological forms and spaces of Tasmanian mountain landscape and the tiny plant ecologies found on a single rock. These latest vertical triptychs are developed from close-ups of trunks and limbs of cider gums Eucalyptus gunnii, the striped and dappled skin of the tree rippling smoothly down the picture plane. Curiously, though, the panels are executed with the canvas on its side, in the artist's habitual manner: horizontal stroke 'handwriting' left to right, top to bottom (to prevent smudging). Painted thus on the horizontal, these panels are of landscape. They sing in close harmony with the panoramas. Turned through ninety degrees and partnered with other vegetal patternscapes they are in landscape." (D Hansen, Philip Wolfhagen: Converging Planes, Sydney, 2000, unpag.)