My recent artworks have focused on portraiture, drapery and landscapes through the mediums of painting and sculpture. The oil paintings range through various levels of representation and abstraction but always try to capture something of the numinous or sublime in the landscape or the figure. The handbuilt sculptures feature wood and bone pieces made of stoneware with delicate draperies of stoneware or porcelain. The complexity of the folds of fabric, the subtleties of white on white, the contrasts of texture are issues that have captivated many artists before me.

The draperies allow for a multitude of interpretations. The contrast of part of nature being covered by drapery, the juxtaposition of the natural and the manufactured, has it’s own beauty, but it also evokes a sense of mystery, even unease. Something has happened, something has been left behind. It could be the natural world we’re covering up, suppressing; it could be the reality of the world that we smother with our entitled fantasies of endless growth and progress; it could be the true histories of original inhabitants that we whitewash and obliterate.

Fabric is a metaphor for humankind. We use coverings not only for warmth and protection but as symbols of wealth or humility, of spirituality or worldliness, of modesty or desire. The concept of covering ourselves brings us back to the myth of the first covering, the fig leaf that symbolised the first separation from god, from nature. The paintings speak of human intervention in the landscape, the root cause of the environmental crisis we now face.

Fabric has been used as a symbolic and actual means of repression and freedom for women, with their bodies and clothes regulated by expectation and law. Drapery, fabric, clothing - it conceals and hides and it also reveals and exposes. The drapery represents always some kind of artificiality or oppression placed over reality or nature.

However, first and foremost, when making art there needs to be a sensual impact. The work of art must rest on a foundation of aesthetics and I attempt always to make work that satisfies both the visual and the intellectual.

With an art career spanning 30 years, I make art to discover something about myself and the world. I want my work to explain myself to the world and explain the world to myself. Art is both the process of questioning and a glimpse towards the answers. I want my art to be beautiful and meaningful, something new that rests on a solid foundation of what has come before.

CV

Selected Awards
2023
Gosford Art Prize Finalist
Bowral Sculpture Prize Finalist
Doyles Art Award Finalist
Nthn Beaches Environmental Awards Finalist

2022
Bluethumb Sculpture Award Winner
Brunswick Street Gallery Small Works Finalist
Halloran Contemporary Art Prize Finalist
Deakin Small Sculpture Award Finalist
Percival Portrait Painting Prize Finalist 
Goulburn Art Prize Finalist
John Villiers Outback Art Prize Finalist 
Du Rietz Art Award         Finalist      
North Queensland Ceramic Awards Finalist
Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award Finalist
Southern Buoy Studios Portrait Prize Finalist    

2019     
Kedumba Drawing Awards Invitational 

2018
Nillumbik Prize Finalist

2017
Kingaroy Biannual Sculpture Prize           Finalist
Nillumbik Prize                                             Finalist
Rookwood Hidden Sculpture Walk            Finalist

2016     
The Alice Prize                                              Finalist
Tom Bass Sculpture Prize                           Finalist 
Nillumbik Prize                                             Finalist

2015
Moran Portrait Prize                                   Semi-finalist
Manning Art Prize: Naked & Nude            Finalist

2012
Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize                    Finalist
Northern Rivers Portrait Competition      Finalist

2010
Portia Geach Memorial Award                   Finalist
Shirley Hannan National Portrait Prize     Finalist                                                                 


Selected Solo Exhibitions
2017
Materiality, Gallery Klei, Sydney
A Year at Dunmoochin, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra, NSW
A Year at Dunmoochin, Montsalvat, Eltham, Victoria

2013
Study, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra, NSW

2012
The Vision Splendid, Shoalhaven Regional Gallery, Nowra, NSW

Selected Group Exhibitions
2020
Old:New, Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga, NSW

2019
Exhibition A, Batlow Literary Institute, Batlow, NSW

2018
Nine, ESD Gallery, Darlinghurst, NSW
Legacy, ELCG, Eltham, VIC

2017
Rot, Recent Graduates of NAS, Factory 49, Marrickville, NSW

2016
Earth and Fire, Shoalhaven Regional Art Gallery, Nowra, NSW

2015
National Art School Graduate Show, Darlinghurst, NSW

2012
The Artist Book Exhibition, Arthouse Hotel, Pitt St, Sydney, NSW
Drunken Boat Project, Lady Denman Museum, Huskisson, NSW
Postcodes from the Edge, Wollongong City Gallery, NSW

2011
Faces of Australia, Parliament House, Sydney, NSW

Education/Residencies

2015-2018       Long-term artist’s residency at Dunmoochin Artists
Community, Hurstbridge, VIC

2013-2015       Bachelor of Fine Arts, National Art School, Darlinghurst, NSW

2012                Certificate IV in Visual Arts, West Wollongong TAFE, NSW

2009                Statements of Attainment in Fine Arts Skills, Painting and Drawing,
Nowra TAFE, NSW