Artist Statement
The visual arts and crafts have always been part of who I am. I owe this to generations of makers in my family, who revelled in applying their creativity to whatever resources they had to hand in order to achieve their needs and fulfill  their desires. This creative heritage included a diverse array of textile and wood crafts as well as the art of repurposing found objects in creative ways – well before it was fashionable to recycle. This imbued a joyful fascination with, not only using mundane materials to create beautiful artefacts, but with the alchemy that occurs when those artefacts communicate in ways that words cannot.

Education
Given my curiosity about everything, the knowledge I’ve gained from formal study, now represents only a small part of my lifelong accumulation of relevant skills and understandings. Regardless, formal bundles of learning are easier to qualify in support of credibility, and so here is some of what I’ve studied at a tertiary level:
 Undergraduate Certificate in Art History – Curtin University
 Diploma of Visual Arts – Painting – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
 Undergraduate Certificate – 3D Design – Queensland College of Art
 Bachelor of Built Environment – Interior Design. Queensland University of Technology
 Environmental Science – Griffith University
 Philosophy and Ethics: classical formal logic. University of Queensland

Influences – approach
The practical disciplines gained from my design education and occupations, in particular my work in Interior Design, informs not only the content planning and aesthetics of a piece but consideration of how it will work within a space it is to inhabit. A painting cannot fully reveal its story if it doesn’t lend itself to being placed where it will be seen often and then be able to repeatedly draw the viewer in to learn more. I aspire to create work that reveals more from each opportunity, giving the story time to be embedded, rather than delivering a quick and perhaps therefore, forgettable, message.

Influences – themes
Driven by my ethical and scientific interests, an important theme in my work seeks to expand awareness of the Animal Condition – a subset of which is, of course, the Human Condition – and the proposition that our common sentience entitles us to the same rights. Truly accepting this requires the upheaval of an array of cultural norms and forces an uncomfortable reckoning for most. As such – rather than confronting people with a traumatised cute cow – I approach it using human figures as relatable and expressive vehicles, with the hope that empathy for our shared potential for suffering will be revealed. Perhaps if that revelation results from an image of beautiful humans exhibiting the privileges of human life, the juxtaposition will lead to a comparative reflection upon what matters…and, if not, they have a beautiful picture to put on their wall until one day maybe it does.