Currently showing at Brenda May Gallery

A few years ago my practice went through an important change as, rather than referencing the images of others, I began working from my own photographs. Friends became models and accepted various physical indignities to indulge my story-making impulses. Rich and unexpected things came out of these sessions with the photographs becoming an important part of my work process.

This process matured with the involvement of my wife, Trude. I wanted to dress the models in Liminal garments suggesting archaic themes, she responded by making a bonnet of twigs, a corset of cow ribs, a crown of bark, and on fully grasping my intentions she added so much more.

I now see the photographs as works in their own right as, although technically different, thematically they are a continuation of my visual obsessions.

I am attracted to hidden things: not just things that are well hidden, but things that are more subtly obscured, disguised in plain sight. I like to glean from my everyday observations, taking time to notice the details that prove themselves to be humorous, sly, tricksy and uplifting. I am taking time to paint moments and places that deserve more than a cursory glance, more than passing attention.

The Illumination works began when I was an artist-in- residence at Hill End in 2010. The archetypal Australian landscape that I encountered was overwhelmingly felt, along with the colonial histories imbued within. My ancestry is strongly connected to this region, dating to pre- 1850 when my ancestors arrived to secure pastoral leases on ‘uncharted’ land. These personal family histories, the broader history of the region and the European idealism projected upon this landscape became the focus of this new work.