My submission to participate in a Château d’Orquevaux Artists & Writers Residency in Champagne-Ardenne, France has been accepted! Being accepted as an Artist-in-Residence is quite an accomplishment. The application process for this program is highly competitive and again received an overwhelming response from many countries this year – only about 20 percent of the artists who apply are accepted to Château d’Orquevaux, which is considered one of “The top ten most beautiful residencies in the world”.

The residency aims to enhance the creative journey of an artist, offering the chance to collaborate and engage with a diverse group of artists. 

I have also been awarded The Denis Diderot Grant which will assist with the costs associated with such a program, for which I am very grateful.

My four-week residency is scheduled for June 3rd-30th, 2024 and I will enjoy recording the adventure here. Stay posted!

Galleria De Marchi (Bologna) May 2022

Tacit Art August 2022

Tacit Art October 2022

About the paintings

Somewhere in the Southern Ocean emerged from a group of paintings and drawings focused on fictional travel, developing on another theme of childhood fantasy adventures; adventures which exist on the edge of logical explanation now transformed by deeper more symbolic representation. 

These works, made in a challenging and unpredictable period in history when travelling anywhere was prohibited, are about the ultimate childhood dream of travelling into and beyond the unknown. As with any innocent caprice, the works are partly informed by imagery found on electronic media but more greatly by my own imagination and experience; this is how I believe The Southern Ocean to be.

The titles of the paintings are edited sentences taken directly from a diary written on the SY Aurora as it sailed to Antarctica and back to relieve Douglas Mawson’s expedition in 1913. The author, Bert Lincoln, was a young Australian sailor who appears to be relishing adventure by being part of what was not only an historic expedition but also a tragic one. Reading his unpretentious but poignant record of everyday life at sea, unwittingly interspersed by his own opinion and first-hand observation about Mawson’s expedition, moved me tremendously and I saw his words appear in my paintings.

BCBF Illustrators Wall 2021

forty-five downstairs, flinders lane melbourne – small! november 2018…

untitled 2018 #1 (mixed media on birch plywood) 15cm x 15cm

untitled 2018 #2 (mixed media on birch plywood) 15cm x 15cm

untitled 2018 #3 (mixed media on birch plywood) 15cm x 15cm