Over the last thirty years I have explored evocations of the natural world and their parallel with emotional states. Initially, after graduating with a Bachelor of Design, I worked in three-dimensional materials. Working mainly with cement, pumice, rocks and other natural resources, I created sculptural outdoor furniture and lighting. I later worked with polyester casting resin. The luminosity, translucence and permanence of the resin appealed greatly to me, as did my yearning to capture and keep fleeting moments of beauty forever. After years of working with resin I moved away from this material due to the toxicity and difficulties that came with working on a large scale. I began producing multi-media paintings with more user-friendly materials such as acrylic, oil paint and varnish along with layers of cement and fixatives. I could evoke both the quiet and desolate or powerful forces of nature, which doubled as a landscape of the mind and heart. I brought together elements of the three dimensional as well as the translucence I loved, in a range of works that were often dark, with dramatic shifts in shape and texture. The peaks, ebbs and flows echo those of life.
I continued my exploration of self through the medium of clay which at that stage was the most direct and intuitive of all. I just let my hands make what my hands wanted to make. The mind gets by-passed, or so it seems and these pieces of clay, squeezed very tightly, came out. “Within this exploration a forest arose from the clay. Exposed to the droughts, submerged by the floods and ravished by the fires of time, the forest goes on. Changed by the elements, it transforms and adapts; there is no fight, it is a thing of beauty, in harmony with its environment”.
This was the beginning of a more intuitive process; less thinking about the creation and more feeling / being with the medium. To give my work a freedom not drawn to analysis or intellectualisation, a freedom to do what it is going to do, and I collaborate and cooperate with that. A curious observation; I don’t know what is going to emerge, I don’t know what it’s saying but I’m allowing it; whatever occurs this creative expression is central to my journey of healing and is another conduit to the spiritual.
Over the years I have been involved in many collaborative exhibitions, art shows and had several solo exhibitions selling work work both locally and Internationally over the last three decades.
My latest solo exhibition was in July 2022 at Artful Yoga Gallery in St Kilda Melbourne. The following is a little information about that exhibition.
The exhibition ‘Elemental’ is a snapshot of both my past and present on many levels. My work continues to draw on the earthly elements of water, air, earth and fire but the way these are expressed has changed dramatically over the last 15 years. I have bought together my favourite works from the past and my current work to create this exhibition.
My work has always paralleled and expressed my emotional and spiritual journey with my life mantra ‘Heal Yourself, Heal The World’.
In earlier works you notice they are on board with cement mountains and oil’s and varnishes to create a thicker texture. I needed them to be understandable; to show a landscape, a scene, a mountain, a fire, something relatable for the viewer and myself to show my pain of what felt like walking through fire, trudging up impossibly high mountain after mountain and expressing this through both the image and heaviness of the materials used. In retrospect it also mirrors my mind with heavy thoughts and fixed ideas of myself and how I thought life should be, but also with that ever-present spark and beauty in the background, always there; patiently waiting to come forward.
As I continued expressing myself though my art, I became more aware of my mind and the thoughts and messages stored in my subconscious. Slowly as this awareness expanded there was no longer such a need to work with the heavy fixed cement based medium. You now notice works starting to be a bit more free in terms of materials and imagery.
This process has led me to my current work of almost pure fluidity. With much lighter water-based materials like gouache, acrylics and watercolours I am no longer defined by imagery, the idea the viewer needs to understand the work, see what I see or feel what I feel. It is a much more personalised process where I have become more in tune with the materials I am using and allowing them to express their own beauty without force but in collaboration.