In 1983, John Olsen and Alex Bortignon, two men concerned for art in Australia, hit upon the idea of offering artists time to work on a theme of their choosing in the company of a writer, who would provide the opportunity for an exchange of ideas, and write of the project.

Later the same year, the opportunity for working on a project was put to Tim Storrier who chose to go back to Egypt, a country he had visited some twelve years previously, and I was asked to participate as the writer.

After Alex Bortignon had worked hard for months at bringing this project to realization, and under the patronage of Sir Garrick Agnew OBE, we set off, in May 1984, to Cairo via Bahrain. Almost immediately images of the journey began to appear in Tim Storrier's journal, many of which were to develop into works represented at this exhibition; they clearly from the beginning represented the importance of the journey for itself. Images of feet and the drover's dog appeared first: the dog, an image of the wild, fettered and made tame by man.

On arrival in Cairo, we were met with the chaos of that city which so abruptly vanishes when the man-made landscape of the city and the sown passes over the sharp line that marks the edge of the desert. The first day was spent far on the other side of the Pyramids of Gizeh, where Storrier set up an umbrella and gazed at the bulk of the Pyramids change with the movement of the sun. Here was the fight and the images I had seen before in Tim Storrier's work: the fight diffused by the fine dust suspended in the air, and the Pyramids with fire behind them.

In 1982, Tim had taken out a scaled-down replica of one of the pyramids to Engonnia in the far west of New South Wales and there set this pyramid alight. There can be few other objects which represent man's longing for permanence more than these structures, and to burn this symbol on the vast Australian plains is in some way recognising the impermanence of all structures while it is a liberation from them.

The concepts of impermanence and time occur frequently in Tim Storrier's art. The striving for permanence by the ancient Egyptians has produced images which, because of this preoccupation, speak of the passing of time. Tim Storrier has focused on particular images such as the stars which were painted on the roofs of tombs and temples and which were thought to have bespangled the body of the goddess Nut as she bent over the earth. The stars appear each night in a different position: it is always the same and always changing. Similarly with the image of fire: the fire transforms one substance into another. The evanescent fight of clouds over the Arabian Gulf and the desert implies again this paradox of changeless change.

In our journey through Egypt we visited Sinai and the monastery of St Catherine's, which supposedly stands on the site of the Burning Bush where the law was given to Moses, and which lies below holy Mount Sinai. We were on the land bridge that links Africa and Asia which has played such an important part in the culture of three major religions. Here we found in the crystals and rocks the shapes that suggested the pyramids and the obelisks of ancient Egypt, here Tim constructed another pyramid out of stones and, under the eyes of a Bedouin shepherdess and her flock, he painted it red as ff to recall fire and the blood of sacrifice.

As we passed up and down the Nile, it became evident that much has not changed in Egypt: the architecture of the fellaheen (the peasants), the decoration of their houses, and the way they work their fields are much the same as can be seen illustrated in ancient tombs: the stars appear in recent designs as do other ancient symbols and customs, and the markets are still full of similar spices as were found in Tutankhamun's tomb. In Egypt the tombs of the ancients, of the early Christians, and of the Muslims are to be seen everywhere, and in each of them there is the impression that there are sleepers dreaming in eternity similar concepts of death and the afterlife as the ancients.

The river has long symbolised the journey of life and no river is stronger in this symbolism than the Nile. All the time we were aware that we were performing, as it were, the most ancient of journeys, and more and more images of the journey and the romance of journeying for itself began to appear: the hat is the hat of the traveller, and the broken feet as seen around the Temple at Abu Simbel represent movement and at the same time the collapse of power as in the study Arm (Will) and the large painting simply called Win.

The works in this exhibition are like the afterimage on the closed eye after looking at a bright light. They are not images of that land as it has been painted before by David Roberts or the Orientalist, academic French painters Gerome and Gleyre; Tim Storrier has given a view of Egypt which is filled with minutiae, a beer bottle, the lotus, and the spices found in its markets which evoke Egypt and the temporality of all things.

Many of his images work on the horizon which for the Egyptians and Australians is the primal image of space, and before the horizon other images appear as if in a rite. Fire, so frequently seen in his work, has been of fascination for all men: it is not only central to many religions, it is the common element of transformation, and represents man either burning with love, jealousy or the desire for power. It is in Tim Storrier's fascination with the detritus of man, of the things left behind that we find not only Egypt's grandeur, its squalor, but more importantly a shared sense of time and space.