Lost At Sea Painting

I have been painting and exhibiting for the last 18 years. After completing an Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts at Meadowbank TAFE in 1998, I went to COFA and graduated with 1st class Honours in 2001. During this period, I became involved with artist run initiatives around the Chippendale in Sydney, and developed a strong DIY sensibility that has become ingrained in every aspect of my practice. In 2005 I began a Masters with a focus on the ‘low arts’, found material and graffiti. During this research I was awarded a 3 month residency in Paris which opened up new ideas about language and text. This began annual trips overseas to collaborate with new networks growing all over the world. In 2007 I graduated from Masters and had a solo exhibition at Titanik Gallery in Turku, Finland based around the themes of my Masters research. In 2009 I worked in Indonesia with the Gang collective exhibiting and running workshops for the ‘Festival Mata Air’ In 2014 exhibited on Governers Island in New York with collage artists and also helped to bring a collage group to Sydney for a group exhibition. My work has been informed by the visual information of the city streets, from graffiti, advertisements, to deco tiles on shop fronts, and peeling paint. I have explored high and low art for many years, With influences like Warhol, Basquiat and the french nouveaux realiste Jacques de la Villagre, my work incorporates collage, spray paint, drawing and tends to be quite texture heavy. Dada s’ readymades and Rauschenburgs also inform my mixed media.Inspiration comes in found objects, ripped posters on the streets, abandoned buildings, old books and stories, second hand toys, child hood memories, giant trees, mysterious deep-sea creatures, thunder storms, graffiti.