Sunset

In 1986 the Robinsons moved from Birkdale Farm to a Beechmont property in Canungra, situated in the Gold Coast hinterland. The Beechmont paintings reveal an important transitional stage in Robinson's art; combining the colour and humour of the Birkdale farmyard works with a new-found sense of the solemnity and awe that the vast landscape of Canungra inspired. Robinson and his wife Shirley are represented as joyous explorers in this primeval environment, a landscape that was to become the sole subject of the spiritually-infused Creation paintings that followed.

In an interview, Robinson spoke of the impact of the Canungra landscape upon his work, stating that: "I had to discover this landscape, take it apart and find how to paint it with my own vision. I immerse myself in it and paint a multi-vision, as if I am going for a walk looking up into the trees, peering down into the creek, and across to that mountain, and still sensing the feeling of being back up on the ridge looking down at the light falling into that deep gorge. I'm not only observing what I see, but contemplating things remembered and anticipating others, so both sides of a mountain might be painted, and a starry sky might fall down to the bottom of the picture." (Artist's statement cited in J Hawley, 'William Robinson's Mature Perspective', Good Weekend, 20 August 1994, pp. 35-35).