My work begins with being aware of my surroundings. Whether I’m walking through the eucalypt forest around my home on Woodhill Mountain, sketching beside the road or painting en plein air, I respond directly to place, using drawn and painted marks to comment on where I am and what preoccupies me.

I come from a photographic background, so light, and the way it creates mood and reveals form, still fascinates me. But a photograph flattens a scene, while painting means relating to the subject continually through observation. The eye and mind flicker across the scene, registering what matters and what moves me, then magnifying or downplaying it.

What interests me most is the space between things: the gaps between tree trunks, the patterns of branches, the play of light through the bush. There is a kind of music in the shapes that trunks and branches define. Fallen bark gathered from the forest floor becomes the starting point for drawings, collages and paintings, and sometimes unexpected human forms emerge.

I work in charcoal, ink, watercolour, oil, acrylic and collage because I value the physicality of making art by hand, and how colour and texture can evoke a powerful emotional response.