About
For many years I have been interested in painting place. I’ve spent time in Africa, Europe and Asia, making paintings about those places and experiences. I am also fascinated by my immediate locale and painting this during different weather conditions and at different times.
I have several projects documented in this site.
TEN WEDNESDAYS AT RICKETT'S POINT record my ongoing visits to paint a particular tree in different weathers conditions - this project started back in 2015
DUSK involves recording that interlude when day turns to night - as the cloak of darkness descends and mysteriously alters the familiar.
EN PLEIN AIR is a commitment to regularly sit in the landscape and record my perceptual sensations - it keeps my visual observations honed to the endlessly diverse visual world around me, and to the subtle changes in colour according to weather, time of day, and light.
POSTCARDS is a project begun in 1998 that involves painting a small watercolour in situ as a direct response to place and then immediately mailing it to; myself; a gallery; or colleague. These works embody a perceptual record of place, but at the same time record something of the physical journey travelled through the postal service from the place painted (stamps, franking, scuffs folds etc.) to its destination.
COLLAGES begun as a way to discover the fundamentals of an image - but have evolved into another way of creating work.
TREES I document and celebrate the trees that I come across in my mostly suburban life - a combination of indigenous and exotic trees - trees that are so essential to our lives and so many are being destroyed or under threat from urban development or climate change.