In Betungi (Oyster), Billy Bain draws on the coastal landscape of Avalon, where the journey begins. A sign encountered at Avalon Beach, carrying a provocative message about localism, becomes an unexpected marker of human presence within the landscape. Its inclusion introduces a tension between ideas of belonging, ownership, and the much longer history of Country.

Rather than depicting a particular moment, Bain constructs a landscape that exists outside linear time. The sign could belong equally to the past or an imagined future, suggesting the fleeting nature of human claims to place. Through the quiet atmosphere of the painting and its accompanying ceramic elements, Bain repositions the landscape as something enduring, beyond the boundaries and conflicts imposed upon it.