Archie Moore, Leaves of Gold, 2026,
from Remnants Of My Father, 24ct gold, copper and River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) branch and leaves, 65 × 30 cm, TCG023858
Pallion Art Collection
GOLD LEAVES
When money grows on trees. People live in peace. Everyone agrees. When happiness is free. Love can guarantee, you’ll come back to me, that’s when.
(‘When’, Shania Twain)
In 2013 the CSIRO published a paper in Nature Communications, which explains how eucalyptus trees in the Kalgoorlie region draw up gold particles to their leaves and branches from as deep down in the earth as fifty metres. The trees are searching for water and are expelling the toxic heavy metals to their leaves, where it can be shed to the ground. These traces are one-fifth the diameter of a human hair and are only visible by using an elemental imaging tool called a Synchrotron. This discovery confirms a correlation old prospectors saw between trees and minerals: that blackbutt trees indicate a potential deposit of gold in the area.
Of course Aboriginal peoples were aware of the gold deposits that lay on the ground’s surface but lacked a reason to utilise the material. Aboriginal peoples were instrumental in discoveries in Victoria, acting as guides to early prospectors in an unfamiliar landscape. Directing these miners to the goldfields led to further dispossession of Aboriginal land.
The impression that gold leaves in my father’s mind for four decades or more is of a promise of things being better, which refutes his often-made statement to us that ‘money is the root of all evil’; sometimes clarified by ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’.
When money grows on trees. People live in peace. Everyone agrees. When happiness is free. Love can guarantee, you’ll come back to me, that’s when.
(‘When’, Shania Twain)
In 2013 the CSIRO published a paper in Nature Communications, which explains how eucalyptus trees in the Kalgoorlie region draw up gold particles to their leaves and branches from as deep down in the earth as fifty metres. The trees are searching for water and are expelling the toxic heavy metals to their leaves, where it can be shed to the ground. These traces are one-fifth the diameter of a human hair and are only visible by using an elemental imaging tool called a Synchrotron. This discovery confirms a correlation old prospectors saw between trees and minerals: that blackbutt trees indicate a potential deposit of gold in the area.
Of course Aboriginal peoples were aware of the gold deposits that lay on the ground’s surface but lacked a reason to utilise the material. Aboriginal peoples were instrumental in discoveries in Victoria, acting as guides to early prospectors in an unfamiliar landscape. Directing these miners to the goldfields led to further dispossession of Aboriginal land.
The impression that gold leaves in my father’s mind for four decades or more is of a promise of things being better, which refutes his often-made statement to us that ‘money is the root of all evil’; sometimes clarified by ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’.