"Forget the name of the thing at which we are looking " - Claude Monet (1840 – 1926))
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Tropical Rainforest and mangrove swamps at Mission Beach, Queensland

The artist travelled to the wild, tropical rain forests of the far north of Queensland on Australia's north east coast. He ended up living and painting for three months in the then wild and largely uninhabited Mission Beach on the Coral Sea.. Two of the three paintings done at this time in the rainforest were The Papaw Trees and the present work Rainforest at Mission Beach. Matthew Moss produced three canvases in this time, as well as numerous gouaches and pencil drawings that later he employed as the basis of further tropical rainforest paintings when he returned to Melbourne.

This painting done on the site does not do credit to the venomous local wildlife, bush flies, soldier ants and snakes that made painting it both difficult and hazardous. A drawing of a massive climbing vine which he completed on the tropical Dunk Island nearby was incorporated on his return to Melbourne into the Mount Buffalo Waterfall, where it it is seen climbing the supports of the timber bridge. From this visit the artist developed a concern with the language of landscape painting as distinct from any buildings that it might contain.

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