Artist Statement

Our wilderness has long been the muse for artists throughout history. But today, in this increasingly rare, ancient landscape, I cannot help but feel a stir of emotions that go beyond the awe and sublime. Here, on Bathurst Harbour in Tasmania’s Southwest, you can see the endurance of time in the glacial-formed quartzite landscape and the age-old trees that cling to the Celery Top Islands, as they have done centuries before. Yet, alarmingly, this primordial, enduring landscape is now an endangered rarity in the era of our Anthropocene world. With sentiments concerning humanity’s fractured connection to the natural world, I reflect on this land’s ancestral heritage of the Needwonnee Peoples, whose deep reciprocal relationship with the land and sea can be seen and felt today. Establishing or reuniting our reciprocal relationship and innate connection to nature is imperative to our earth’s healing. Drawing upon my emotional connection and observations surrounding the effects of nature on our physical and emotional well-being, I aim to create an intangible space within this work, a sublimity that generates a raw and primal reunion with nature – a place for reflection, reverence, empathy and hope.