In 1943, while conscripted and stationed at Nhill, Nolan painted the nearby town of Kiata. Curator Denise Mimmocchi calls this a breakthrough moment, when the abstract artist also became a landscape painter.

The following year Nolan learned he would be sent to fight in Papua New Guinea. He deserted the army in 1944, and a couple of years later, in 1946, he began the 27‑painting Ned Kelly series. He saw the outlaw as a rebel poet and linked the work to his own war experiences.

Nolan’s fascination with stories and myths – from the bushranger Ned Kelly to the trials of saints – drove him to explore how personal and national narratives shape identity. Curator Denise Mimmocchi says Nolan posed questions about place, identity and the individual search for meaning within Australia’s landscapes.

In 1949 Nolan travelled through central Australia, where the vast, luminous desert left a strong impression on him. The experience informed many later paintings, giving them a sense of endless light and energy.

The exhibition ‘Nolan: Origins’ at the Art Gallery of New South Wales charts his career from 1939 until his move to London in 1953, showing how his wartime service, desertion, childhood memories and love of Australian legends combined to create a uniquely myth‑laden visual language.