The Summer of Fires

The 2019-2020 Summer had a profound effect on me, as it had on many people. I found myself both emotionally and creatively frozen for quite sometime, gripped in worry about the fires which got close enough to drop burnt leaves, and left many in my shire without homes. Two mega fires were less than 20km away.

Eventually, I had to paint, and everything that I have painted since then has been all about the landscape. Fire Paintings, and landscape recovery. The river that was empty, suddenly flowing again, and green starting to emerge through the forest again continue to influence my work as the landscape recovers.

After the 2019 and 2018 Artforbales campaign which saw Kate Pittas and I coordinate an effort to raise over $160000 for drought relief, the impact of climate change on our landscape has been ever present in my mind. I have always painted the landscape around me, but after years of drought and the summer of fires I feel more driven to explore what Climate Change means and the impact it will have.

I read of friends with food and water shortages on Norfolk Island, after years of drought, and of farmers in the west who are still handfeeding cattle, trying to survive.

Art seems like the best way for me to explore what this all means to me