Blog

'The Visitors' is my visual response to the profound physical and energetic impressions left by the diverse array of people who came to my studio in October 2021, as part of the Noosa Open Studios art trail.

This series began as a pathway to explore and communicate historical stories and events that have taken on a deep and personal significance over time. A year in the making, these paintings permanently inhabited my studio space alongside other work which gave me a tangible and compelling reason to pause and reflect on their purpose and meaning as a body of work.

The mind will freely wander into unexpected places when time and energy is spent focused on the physical process of making and creating. 'Rekindle' is about working in the present moment yet simultaneously existing in a space of memories, both visual and emotional. 

What happens when we allow ourselves to be truly curious in the studio? What if we think about our art process as a way to ask questions rather than a way of creating answers? If we approach our art making with curiosity as our reason for doing it, does it change the way we think about the resulting artwork? Is it more or less valid?

Journeys, in all their forms, are woven from moments that leave lasting impressions. Some pass by in the blink of an eye, others unfold slowly across time — yet each, whether fleeting or enduring, recent or long past, physical or imagined, carries an emotional weight. These moments have a way of settling into us, gathering meaning with hindsight, and deepening our understanding of both place and self.

This body of work evolved from a series of process-driven sketches on paper using a limited colour palette, creating a visual dialogue between positive and negative space within each piece. This series was intended as a brief exploratory journey, away from working on large canvas panels and on a more intimate scale through which I could move quickly capturing many ideas and compositional designs in a relatively short space of time.