Acrylic on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the front.

James Gleeson was a huge influence on me, in particular his later works. I came across his "The Darkening Stage" at the NGV on a school excursion back in the mid 1990s and was immediately amazed. Dark and light forms swirling, fighting, combining, mutating; liminal almost-things in an unearthly landscape. It was dark , surreal and romantic, I was enthralled.

With my tree-scapes, I sometimes feel as if I'm exploring a Gleeson-world of distorted shapes, peeling bark ebbing and flowing with colour. Perhaps gliding over a vast, ancient landscape. And I like that my art is tied back to actual trees I have seen and photographed, they are based in living nature but also, in the mind, can suggest something very primordial.