My Story

It is hard to write a statment about my art without reflecting on the changes in my life that lead me to where I am today. In my former life before I was an artist and only enjoyed drawing or painting every now and again or being a hobby ceramicist, I was sold an idea that I had to keep pushing myself higher and higher up the ladder. Work harder, longer be stronger and better to validate who I was. Because at that time my life was defined by the career I had made for myself.

Then I broke, my body, my mind, my identity. The things that had been the defining elements of who I was as I saw were gone. Eventually I was able to physically move away from that traumatic time and relocated to the Southern Highlands. Through art I began to start rebuilding who I was but without the constraints of the expectations that I had been told or had told myself.

I often describe it as the moment in the WIzard of Oz when Dorothy first wakes up and is surrounded by colour for the first time. But unlike Dorothy I have no interest in going back to Kansas.

The art I make is unashamed, it’s bright, it’s bold and it is very present and not intended to sit flat and fade nicely into the background. It wants you to be a part of it. In my contemporary landscapes the abstraction and use of line and direction create movement and form that give you enough room to know what you are looking at but also give you the space to make your own mind up about what the image is saying to you.

I am also drawn to the the animal world and love creating made up beasts both beautiful and bizare. This is also true for my work in collage where the aim is to play and embrace the weird and wonderful. To obtain a reaction whether it is of enderance or disgust.

As I continue to evolve as an artist I see myself utilizing the elements of joy and chaos, and embracing fearlessness, to be and say just as it is.