Nocturnal seascapes have been a subject in my art I can trace back to childhood, growing up on the remote and wild coast of North-West Tasmania.
Almost 30 years ago, during my first year in art school in Warnambool, Victoria, the crisp night scene of the Norfolk pines along the beach inspired me more than anything else. I’ve included that simple tiny etching ‘Night Walk’ from 1997 into this exhibition The Deep Green Sea as a way of looping the past into the present, a sub-theme of this body of work.
In July 2023, just before the planned opening of The Deep Green Sea, I shared with friends a draft chapter for a short story about a Selkie child, who lived in a strange land at the end of time, born with a life threatening condition at the nape of her neck. Just five weeks later my spritely daughter was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour on her brainstem, of which the removal caused an acute brain injury resulting in permanent disability.
This series of events sent me into a spiral of pain and wonder, a very deep prayer-filled, introspective spiritual journey. The very nature of existence, karma, co-creation with the universe, intuition and soul contracts, purpose, destiny and the locality of consciousness became my language as I sought to understand my daughters situation from a higher perspective. Needless to say, grief and loss are part of this story, but so too are hope, love and resilience. BRAG gracefully granted a delay of 18 months to the exhibition opening and the prints I’d began to develop; a series of ocean nocturnes, took on a new poignancy. The short story, morphed into a full novella, as I lived bedside with my daughter in hospital for 6 straight months, 3 of which she was unable to move or talk.
Drawing and writing became a therapy which, along with the wonderful support of family and community, bought us through an unbelievably difficult time. The body of work in its entirety then, becomes a letter of love and strength for my daughter and a deep dwelling on a variety of belief systems of the great mystical traditions, avatars and philosophers of mankind. With all my gnostic longing, in the end there is still simply a great mystery, the same one every human must grapple with. The ocean stands in for this vast unknowing within this body of work; its eternal beauty and rhythm a source of healing and peace within times of uncertainty.
By drawing on multiple cultures for their mythical and symbolic belief systems, a new story is revealed, but one that is still shrouded in mystery, yet inviting and wonderous to explore. I’m interested in unsettling and re-imagining mythic structures whilst envisioning the ‘sublime’ within landscape. These are often recognisably Antipodean places, localised at times to South-Western Australia, (for e.g. where I have made etchings of Sugar Loaf and Castle Rock), yet they are inflected with cross-cultural influence from my lived and ancestral homes between Tasmania, New Zealand, Scotland and the Faroe Islands and my long-standing love of Japanese aesthetic philosophy.
Jungian Active Imagination exercises, admit me to roam landscapes within my mind while conscious and calmly meditating. These landscapes morph and form in my minds’ eye; I notice weather phenomena, shadows and mountains and living creatures or symbolic Archetypal figures that often have a message.
These processes are aimed at bringing forth, subconscious and unconscious parts of ourselves forward and to know oneself better. Many belief systems use similar methods, in fact it can be compared to a kind of shamanic healing journey within.
Other sub-themes, more pronounced in the novella perhaps, is a warning of a post-apocalyptic Earth, choked with litter and ecological destruction and the interconnection of all things in creation. Photo
luminescent pigments (glow in the dark) add to the luminosity to deliver a new experience for the viewer once the light of day disappears. Becoming a Butoh performer was an unexpected yet welcome development, where collaborating in movement, wellness and immersive installation with Rachael Rei Kostusik and Molly Ryan for the opening event has been marvellously exciting and uplifting.
I’d like to thank Lloyd Horn, the Department of Culture and Arts (DLGSC), The City of Bunbury and Bunbury Regional Art Gallery for their support. And to family, friends and my audience thankyou, from the bottom of the deep green sea, for your encouragement and support. ✠.
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