Artist's Statement

Place is central to my practice, giving shape to considerations of the changing nature of the human condition in light of accelerated climate change. In elaborating the essential humanism of painting as an emotive, intellectual art form. my paintings adopt a neo-Cubist attitude to space in an attempt to represent the ever-moving focus that is sensory perception. My work seeks to embody the complex interactions between humans and their physical and cultural surroundings, engaging with the personal experiences of migration, dramatising disruptions to weather patterns as a result of global warming, and examining competing geographical conceptions of line in coastal and inland regions of Australia.

Most recently, my work has explored the ways in which humans and animals move through built and natural environments in response to physical and visual topography, in an attempt to redefine traditional conceptions of Australian landscape painting in kinetic and immersive ways. This interest in the relationships between art and the viewer has led to increasingly large-format works that offer audiences an experience on the human scale.

An emerging, self-trained artist based in the Riverina, I have collaborated with fellow artists, curators, arts coordinators, and gallerists, extending my practice through solo and group exhibitions, residencies and the public commissioning and acquisition of seminal work, including permanent public art installations for Dubbo Hospital Redevelopment project and Western Cancer Centre, set to open in 2021. In 2018, I was named Country Arts South Australia’s Grindell’s Hut Artist in Residence and a finalist in ‘The Churchie’ National Emerging Art Prize. In Sydney, I have worked closely with printmaker Martin Stanley, and collaborated with Nicholas Summers at Plum Letterpress. Professional affiliations include the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), Parramatta Artists’ Studios, Creative Road, Good Sport and Eastern Riverina Arts.

I have travelled widely, devoting a year in the United Kingdom to studying the works of David Hockney, Patrick Heron and Howard Hodgkin in the Victoria & Albert Museum print department and at Salts Mill, Saltaire. Frequent visits to the United States have allowed for a rigorous survey of Abstract Expressionism, with a concerted focus on the works of Mark Rothko in the Rothko Chapel, Houston, and those of Robert Motherwell in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. I have also conducted close studies of hard-edge minimalists Carl Andre and Robert Ryman, both of whom inform the formal characteristics of my monochromes. Spending significant time in Baltimore in 2010-11 allowed for a detailed survey of the Cone Collection, containing the world’s largest collection of works by Henri Matisse, an artist who has played an equally formative role in the development of my own work. 

Current & Upcoming Exhibitions 


·         2022 - November, Latitude, Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, NSW

·         2021 - Permanent Installation, River-Tree-Plain, Dubbo Hospital Redevelopment Project Stage 3 + 4 & Western Cancer Centre, NSW

Recent Solo Exhibitions
 

·         2020 - July - October, Dead Reckoning, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW

·         2019 - August - September, Rising Tide, Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Sydney, NSW

·         2018 - September - October, Cut/Copy, Alternating Current Art Space, Melbourne, VIC

·         2018 - May - June, Expanse, Gallery 43, NSW

·         2017 - June - August, 365, Western Plains Cultural Centre, NSW

·         2017 - January - February, Axis, Griffith Regional Art Gallery, NSW

·         2016 - April - June, From there to here, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW

·         2016 - February, Window Gallery, Eastern Riverina Arts, NSW
 

Selected Group Exhibitions


 ·        2021 - February - April, Don’t Call Wagga Wagga, Wogga! , Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW

 ·        2020 - November - February, 8 Doors, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery External Facade, NSW

·         2018 - September - November, Finalist, ‘The Churchie’ National Emerging Art Prize, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, QLD

·         2018 - Finalist, Life Abstracted, Cambridge Studio Gallery, Melbourne, VIC

·         2017 - Finalist, Calleen Art Award 2017, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, NSW

·         2017 - New Acquisitions, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW
 
 

Artist-in-Residence
 

·         2019 - Bundanon Trust, Shoalhaven, NSW

·         2019 - Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Sydney NSW

·         2018 - Grindell’s Hut Art Residency, Country Arts SA, Flinders Ranges, SA

·         2016 - Annabel Wallace Gallery,  NSW

 

Collections
 

•    Works held in the permanent collection of Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Dubbo Hospital & Western Cancer Centre, and private collections across Australia