Hello there!
I’m a ‘Thing-finder’, a bricoleur, a visual storyteller.
Welcome to‘my place’ on the web of the world! I hope you enjoy your time here among my artworks.
I’m a full-time artist-tutor working from my beloved ‘bower-bird’ studio on the Capricorn Coast in Central Queensland Australia.
I work with simple soulful things; calico, used textiles, brown paper, muslin, twigs, leaves, pods and stones, string, ephemera and broken discarded objects.
As a bricoleur, I retell and reinvent stories using layers of materials, I relish the process of creating art from the found. I combine diverse materials by deconstructing, reconstructing, marking, layering, and stitching to create new stories.
The main themes of my work are narrative, the natural world, and explorations of the human condition, I draw from personal and family histories and experiences, seeking the stories and energies contained within the objects and materials.
My practice is centred around the Buddhist words of: mottainai and Shinto.
‘Mottainai’ – don’t waste what nature has given you relates to the motto ‘waste not want not’, which has been passed down to me from my parents and grandparents - this has become my way of being too.
‘Shinto’ – objects have souls, I believe the found pieces I work with have energies within them, they have experienced past lives and they have a ‘voice’, if I listen to what they are saying to each other I know where they want to be in my artworks.
My work is tactile, layered, inwardly reflective and intimate in scale, at times my work invites the viewer to touch or manipulate it. It is labour intensive, encompassing the techniques of printmaking, hand stitch, encaustic and assemblage. I am responsive to the materials used, embracing the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi (in simple terms; an aesthetic of imperfection, beauty in ageing and the ordinary), within my pieces.
My unique works are often housed within a vessel, an artist’s book or simply installed as unframed wall-pieces. The challenge of presenting my work beyond the walls of the traditional gallery setting is an integral part of my process.
