Solo Exhibitions   •  1981- 2010

Natural Histories
1982-84

Invention of Ayers Rock
1996

Artist Statement

My art spans both digital and traditional analogue media (drawing, painting, collage, photography, animation and performance). In that sense all my work is multimedia in nature. The unique differences between digital and analogue media offer a way of constructing works that convey a wide range of conceptual and aesthetic ideas and techniques.

Much of my art is a response to the changing nature of my local rainforest, mangrove and beach environments where I grew up and continue to live. The impacts of rapid urban development, global warming and tourism have all been significant players in my output over the last decade.

My productions often grow out of each other across time and space. The processes involved in producing the works are also highlighted. In many ways the present is made up of fragments of the past, and are projected rather like dream images or TV advertising spots. My artworks are highly condensed abstract audio-visual conceptual messages. These images are intended to be “grabbed”, like take-away food, as you pass by then are slowly mulled over at your leisure.

So to my animations are extensions of my 2D and 3D work, writing and performances. This rhizomatic approach that sprouts like a ginger root in a non-linear fashion allows me to develop ideas in a more organic way that mirrors how my daily life is experienced. Images, signs, motifs, memories all have a habit of returning like old friends to strike up new relationships with your current ideas.

I tend to work locally and think globally as a creative strategy. The politics of both global and local life impact on aesthetics in practical as well as ideological ways. It is impossible for me to divorce my aesthetic concerns from my everyday political, social and cultural being. In this way my works deal with political issues as much as art or aesthetic issues.

For me, art is always about calling into question established notion of what reality is at any given time. So my objectivesaim to try and move the viewer both immediately in an aesthetic sense and then more indirectly into a conceptual and political investigation of what is being considered as art. The pleasure gained by experiencing a work lies in a marriage between the apparent simplicity of the physical signs and the complexity of their conceptual meanings.

Another recurring theme in my work is the role time and memory play in shaping reality. Many of my animations are concerned with performance in some way - doing time. My early career as an actor and performance artist has carried over into my paintings and animation works. The role of the body is crucial to every art production – even my body an active and obvious player in my works. In this way it becomes clear that the sacrifice of time and energy has been committed in a positive manner.

Every artwork is therefore a map of beingness as well as a pathological reading of the Real. Through the work can be traced all the decisions made in the creative process. The reading of the artworks is therefore collaboration between artist (myself) and the viewer (yourself). Where the artwork takes you is dependant on the choices you make along the journey of making sense of the reality-fictions we construct around us.