about

I work in “The Cave”; a tilt up concrete industrial space that is ten minutes from Perth’s CBD and ten minutes from the airport. The road is on a perfect alignment with runway “number two”. The sound of aircraft overhead prompts thoughts of otherness. Perth is located on the extreme western edge of the vast state of Australia. European settlement took place relatively recently in the 1800s; today it is a City of pastiche-cultural values, a currency that fluctuates. Perth is a place that feels a fraction out of time with the world, sitting on the off beat. Although there is a tangible level of economic prosperity the city is a place where a cultural determination is in the process of construction.

What Perth lacks in urbane culture it makes up for in proximity and relationship to a spirit filled land and ocean. For the indigenous culture a displacement was enforced, however the belief that they don’t own the land but rather the land owns them highlights a sense of belonging to a place. For the non-indigenous the displacement is temporal. This dichotomy of relationship and envisioning of history underpins much of my work. In this way the work I do is a response to a broader sense of cultural displacement.

Working in ‘the Cave’ a question returns, “What is the context in which I work?“ To which I respond, somewhat defensively, “There isn’t one.” Its an quick response and not thought through. “Then what is the process for the design of your work?” “I don’t do design, design does itself out of necessity.” A surprising response when you read it on the page, but by that I mean; what I do is process and how this process unfolds and is shaped, critiqued, argued in my mind and with others is what drives the work and the outcomes at every stage.

This may highlight an avoidance of scrutiny. Rather than worry about what has been, my instinct is to move ahead and make new work, leaving a trail behind for examination and debate. It is as if by trying to start new things, breaking new ground I get closer to an understanding of the world. A self analysis which is fraute with the vaguaries of individualism.

Predominantly I make sculpture. Formally they are constructions, assemblage and mixes that explore activation and movement. These works are material translations that emerge from a thinking process that evolve through drawings, film and text. I make drawings that are primary gestures, exploring drawing as observation, drawing as a way of thinking and drawing as expressive meditation of ideas. I am interested in the currency of drawing across a range of disciplines. The films are environmental. I refer to them as ‘Relays’, that represent and document the prosaic of the everyday, the social relics, or ruins, in a way the moving image reactivates empty casings.

My current project is an investigation into the political, the poetic and prosaic dimensions of Demarcation. Political in the social sense, poetic in the expressive sense and prosaic in the sense that it appears raw.
The process and the collaborative dialogue is critical to my work. Your response is crucial.

“Welcome aboard…”