Just Like Clockwork

Collage on wood panel
305mm x 305mm
2022
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Just Like Clockwork explores the tension between human agency and mechanical order. It sets up a world where time is coded, bodies are sequenced, and behaviour is modelled through repetition. The fragmented figures and technological motifs suggest a stage where individuality is tested against a grid of predictability, a reminder that in the language of systems, people too often appear as inputs and outputs.
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Yet the work is not purely dystopian. There is humour and play in its vivid palette, a sense that even inside a matrix of order, improvisation still leaks through. Just Like Clockwork becomes both a critique of automation and a celebration of what resists it. Glossy, fractured and alive with Paperpunk energy, it is a striking artwork that rewards close looking and sparks ongoing reflection.
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This work was exhibited in CONTENT, a 2024 solo exhibition at Braemar Gallery in Springwood, New South Wales. Within the exhibition it resonated as a meditation on the pull between control and resistance, part of the broader investigation into how media systems shape, and sometimes constrain, human experience.

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For the last 30 years I have been making physical, analogue, hand-cut collage art using only found materials.

That is an important distinction to make. When sourcing materials my work I do not use any form of reproduction, copying or digital manipulation in any way. All of the elements, all of the images that I use in my artworks, have been collected from the pages of magazines, books and comics, or from other printed materials like pamphlets, posters or flyers. A large part of the process of creating these pieces lies in the collection of the components. That is the thrill of the hunt; looking for the right pieces to fit together in order to create these compositions. Once found, the images are then hand cut from the page, most often with the use of scissors.

Once the materials have been collected and the collage has been constructed, my artwork then undergoes a process of varnishing, which not only give the collage a nice finish but also vastly improves the permanence of the item. All of the work that you see here has been treated with many layers of varnish and then buffed to a smooth finish. I often complete these artworks with a glossy top coat that gives each piece a shiny lustre that greatly enhances the vibrancy of the colours.

My studio is in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, on Dharug and Gundungurra country.