‘Hunt ‘em down and smoke ‘em out’ was a George W Bush quote about Osama Bin Laden at the time the US invaded Iraq. After much military research, I found that many of the soldiers related to the gun toting cowboy image, hence my image of a Roy Rogers (George W Bush) figure.

This work is part of the series of drawings and prints in which I am exploring the idea of the visual field as an expression of inner self. Each image I produce is only a framed segment of measureless space and sound.

This work looks back to one autumnal day spent wandering the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. All around were the accouterments of death including a vast array of ceramic wreaths.  But there were also signs of life; the softly clattering leaves, the incursive mosses and the shared experience of being together in that place.

Each day of existence presents a monumental platform for new discoveries. By applying multiple layers of paint and screenprint over time, a history of colour and texture work to form a spatial dialogue; each layer revealing potential for subsequent outcomes and resolutions. "Primarily, it is the 'unexpected' that drives a seductive force of fascination for me".

I am exploring the ‘Nature clashing with Culture’ element.

The theme monumental is reflected in George’s Legacy as a viewpoint on an historical Tasmanian Government ‘blunder.’ Lieutenant Governor George Arthur (Tasmanian Governor 1823 – 1837) is being snapped at his heels by a Thylocene. George, along with many subsequent governors, did nothing to protect the Thylocene creatures from being shot by farmers.

Shadows of My Former Self is an ongoing series that explores the residue of life’s experiences.  Peering into the past, an old family slide captures forever a moment in time.  As time passes, that same image which once provided hope and joy is now viewed more precariously.  These small fragments of time become fractured and often mask a hidden, darker view of the truth, the deeply buried secrets and the shadows that haunt.

Monumental: awesome: terrifying. Both of my works allude to pending dangers of a monumental scale. In Leviathan, breaks in the printed acrylic surface afford glimpses of a dark force lurking below.  Future Bold is a warning: a diptych of cause and effect, of explosive forces and glowing, toxic afterglow.

Bringing another human life into this world is a monumental occasion, one that has made me re-examine almost everything and question what is truly valuable in this existence. Through the use of word and image (and to no end) advertising messages promise us the ultimate comfortable and pleasant existence. As I pull the blankets up at night, I lie awake questioning how comfortable we really are. 

My work is a large quilt created from painted and screen-printed panels. The image and text on all of these is crops, either from local signage (photos taken around the city) or from advertising in local papers (from the past). The quilt has been put together for me by a Whyalla-based quilt maker. I am hoping to explore these types of collaborations further in future work.

I started this work in 2014 and like a piece of music it has been reworked and changed.  The starkness has been softened by landscape and the presence of animals reflecting my own evolving philosophy that nothing is done in isolation and everything reverberates through time.

My experience is that life is monumental at times, from the vastness of nature to overwhelming life events. I intended my prints to be monument-like, standing strong and centred.

Thinking of Russian painter Kasimer Malevich’s seminal Black Square 1916 and Australian artist Peter Booth’s early monumental abstractions, affectionately called “the black doors” c. 1970, this work responds to the legacy of the extremely reduced form. Basically, a modernist precept that was heavily imbued with depth and meaning, these works respond to such histories as well as offer a light hearted re-envisioning of such concepts. Finding a narrative in old discarded pieces of wood collected from Australia’s highways during travels on the East Coast, I have tried to instil my emotional and perceptive experiences into a simplified print-form that has narrative as well modernist logic.