Various recent works. Click on the images to enlarge and view full image.

 
The latest works are open ended narratives that can be read on many levels. On one level they are simply an intuitive exploration of beauty and aesthetics. On a more conscious level, the works explore cultural identity, blending the whimsical with the atmospheric. The paintings are an eclectic mix of the past and present, the wide open spaces of Australia and the traditional images of French and Italian culture. For non-Indigenous Australians, there has always been the question of cultural identity and where we fit. For several years I have been travelling regularly to Italy and France. I have always felt a strong resonance with the art of the Renaissance and the European cultural traditions. The paintings by the early Renaissance artists such as Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico and Perugino are particularly special to me. We would arrive back in Australia and literally feel like fish out of water. It was almost like a cultural identity crisis. I decided to represent this by juxtaposing symbols of the European tradition with representations of Western Australia: space, vast skies and oceans and endless highways cutting through dry flat scrub land.