Pure silver, 10x28x22cm

Inspired by regular visits to the pristine south coast of Kangaroo Island, the Scintilla series relates to the fragile coastal plants and sea life, capturing the subtle textures and patterns from the area. These parallel qualities are reflected in the delicate vessels which are hand made from precious pure silver.

Mixed media on canvas, 140x140cm

I use a spare, graphic approach to deliver matter in distinct portions. The surface includes the weave allowing the support to participate in the construction of the image. The substance of paint, the origin of pigments and their cultural signification are particular to my work being the carriers of meaning.

Acrylic on linen, 122x183cm

Anwekety, the bush plum, is a Dreaming story given to Gladdy by her Grandmother. From above, the seasonal colours of the anwekety dominate Ahalpere country. Gladdy’s shimmering, sweeping expanses of dots create a rich and vertiginous image of desert terrain. The joyful rhythms reflect Gladdy’s pride in passing down the story, just as her grandmother did.

Oil on linen, 30x40cm

Twenty four days after is a response from my direct experience of the Black Saturday fires. Little remained upon the severely burnt ground, except for a dense white layer of powdery ash, covering everything. In later adays a howling wind carrying the ash and dust, moved through, obscuring the skeletal landscape.

Tissue paper and river water, 200x150cm

Fish Out Of Water was inspired by scraps of Melaleuca bark snagged on flood debris. The elemental interaction of my materials and the river, has created a type of palimpsest of times past and lost. I hope my work serves to reveal concerns about and attitudes to our fragile riverine ecosystem.

Pencil on Japanese album, 35x180cm

For some time now I have abandoned the camera in preference for the direct and highly observational practice of drawing to record place and time. West Hobart Journal is a single continuous drawing through an early spring garden. Each entry is a study of detail and light, often incorporating small items as reminders of materials, textures and fragility.

Incense burns on paper, 95x156cm

Here, foliage is burned on - creation by destruction - while the essence of growth is bared in structure. It radiates a primal energy, rooted in earth but yearning for heaven. Marked by past seasons – lush, arid, scorched – it reaches out in patterns uniquely individual, its regeneration ever immanent.

Altered book, 25x30x25cm

This children's book and child’s kangaroo puzzle were the perfect pieces to express my long-standing love affair for Australia, its history, land and people. The iconic kangaroo covered in fragmented text and imagery from Exploring Australia suggests an open invitation to return.

Blown glass and carved slate, 17x80x14cm

Acorns have been viewed with superstition for hundreds of years and whilst I accept this is an irrational belief, there may possibly be some truth. So I should accumulate as much of this intangible resource as I can, to increase whatever hope these objects offer for my future security.

Ceramic, nylon and steel, 160x120x90cm

Water has an integrity that draws together many drops to replenish rivers and oceans. There’s a perpetual cycle of rhythm and flow. Realising we are interconnected with natural systems can inspire feelings of oneness and belonging, and acceptance of responsibilities that come with being part of a greater whole.

Watercolour, 47x81cm

How long can Australia continue to propagate exotic plants to create a Northern Hemisphere aesthetic. Should we be appreciating native flora rather than escaping from it; to see beauty in its rusticity and ruthlessness to survive this harsh climate. Ironically, it was the Australian sun that forced these leaves into autumn colours, despite the Magnolia being an evergreen.

Watercolour, 42x57cm

Some people don’t think crabs are beautiful, but I was inspired by the Blue Swimmer Crab’s colouring and form. I aimed to capture its quirky spirit, drawing from life, in ink, without a preliminary pencil drawing.

Photopolymer intaglio print, 29x20cm

Lavender and Camellias explores how natural elements can be used to transform into an abstracted artwork.

Chlamys asperrimus shells, white shell grit, linen thread and bookbinder’s gum on canvas, 155x155x5cm

Created as a joyful celebration of our precious marine biodiversity, this piece is also a plea for its long-term protection. Collected from the bountiful sandy beaches of Kangaroo Island, these dead shells tell stories about the natural forces that influenced their individual histories. Gathered together, they resonate as one.

Oil, 75x100cm

The Cedars: strolling through historical landscape of Hans Heysen I came across a famous gum, fallen camouflaged amongst the scrub. It was sad to see such a significant tree end its life. It inspired me to resurrect it in this perspective and emphasise the cycle of life where nature willingly succumbs, the small lizard demonstrating its proportions.

Acrylic on canvas, 140x170cm

The power of nature is as subversive as it is static, revelling in illusionary dichotomies, mocking what we see and what we know. Laden with blossom before the wind, stripped bare after to reveal an orchard, not what I thought to be one very large old blossom tree. Nature has a way of letting you laugh at yourself.

West Tamar Highway. Riverside.

Oil on canvas, 134x140cm

The beauty inherent within themes of collapse and decay is a thread that runs through much of my work. The dead Badge Huntsman was challenging for an arachnophobic painter, although it became paradoxically less able to excite my irrational fears when blown up on the large canvas. What was previously unknown, small and terrifying no longer engenders the same anxiety.

Acrylic, 100x100cm

outback

subtle colours

hardy plants

gorgeous lizards

space, solitude, silence

Acrylic on board, 120x90cm

The Armoured Mistfrog, once thought extinct, actually survived despite being infected with the deadly chytrid fungus, teaching us that we too as a species can learn to grow, adapt and endure. For me the title’s meaning is threefold; Lost and Found in its environment, as a species and in the painting’s edges.

Oil, 137x122cm

Tidal Forms has an environmental correlation: our origins come from this area between low and high tide. In this painting I’m interested in the natural abstract formations that result from wave action and tidal rhythms. I feel we are connected and affected by the elements - the wind, the sun and the water.

Mixed, 134x83cm

As he stands so majestically for a moment or two in his beautiful habitat, we capture a glimpse and a sense of his world. Warmed by the sun, he vanishes again into the Australian bush. We are so blessed.

Mixed media on canvas, 150x105cm

The painting suggests division: light and dark, land and sky, cell to cells and uses a humorous question to ask what motivated that first cell division: an act of survival, a choice for life, an attempt at immortality that consequently informed the development of all life on Earth.

Oil on linen, 122x198cm

Entranced by the drama of the alpine environment of Mt Field, I was captivated by the pencil pines, Athrotaxis cupressoides, writhing skyward on the tree line. Enduring bitter cold, gales and the violence of passing storms, the kinder climates below are beyond these individuals’ reach.

Oil on Belgian linen, 81x121cm

Reflection of time past,

Recollection of underwater-watching

As a child.

A tribute to the seahorse

Gathered

By my mother

Almost 60 years ago.

The light

The bright, clear light of summer

With no shadowy place to go.

Water

Delicate as glass.

How long will it last?

Oil on canvas, 120x180cm

Embedded in the scarred bark of living ancient eucalypt trees are intricate marks that translate centuries of historical change. Fragments of this bark have been assembled to create a surreal ‘landscape’ that captures the ancient rhythms of Australia’s landscape, animated by a simple narrative of a honeyeater seeking nectar.

Oil on canvas, 92x122cm

This painting is of a Kale which I grew in my garden. I was fascinated by its growth, colour and the way the plant turned to the light. While painting it in my studio, I noticed over the period of a week the way its leaves continued to turn towards the light.

Oil, 187x95cm

The Purple Leaved-Mallee, Eucalyptus pluricaulis - subspecies porphyrea, evokes wonder as the morning sun highlights its coloured foliage. Wisdom comes from a close study of the light falling over and around the forms. On closer inspection beauty is in the details. Take time to look again.

Socrates wrote the title.

Acrylic on linen, 122x183cm

Sugarbag is one of Josie's favorite bush foods and she usually has some in her house. It refers to different types of bush honey and is a rare treat, highly sought by Aboriginal people. Mostly collected from hollow logs in older trees, made by bush bees, a lot is also gathered directly from colorful bush flowers.

Acrylic on linen, 120x120cm

Through precise dot work Margaret depicts the story of the bush potato vine Anatye. Growing after the rains, the women collect the sweet potato using crowbars to dig up the ground. Once collected they are cooked in the hot coals of the fire. They are an important source of bush food for the Anmatyerre people.

Acrylic on canvas, 41x55cm

The Swampy – draining waters from Kosciuszko, the river’s summer senescence belies the raging waters that flow from the spring snow melt. The hard mountain stone yielding to the incessant demands of water which pounds and sculpts the smooth river rock cobble exposed on this quite river bend.

Acrylic on linen, 120x180cm

Ngadajirri depicts the breeding site of the budgerigar in Eva's homeland at Mount Dennison, north east of Alice Springs. Employing fields of intricate dotting Eva's painting shows the landscape of her country with its contours and hills, the waterholes where the birds flock to drink and play at the water’s edge, and the sites where they lay their eggs.

Engraving on clayboard, 122x92cm

Veronica is not concerned with the decorative elements of plants but the architecture of stems and leaves, their tone texture and shape.  Her current work is a series of portraits of trees in her immediate landscape at Crafers.  They are rendered in the medium of Clayboard engraving.

Oil, metal-leaf on canvas

39x39cm

Balance (Spoonbill) is presented in a format influenced by early Christian religious icons. My issue is about our attitude and the belief in us as custodians of the planet and who is responsible enough to maintain a balance between our own endeavours and the natural world.

Oil on canvas, 100x100cm

My desire is to convey the jewell-like quality I see in these emu eggs. In their natural environment of velvety earth and brush, which serves as a natural foil for the opalescent and luminous lustre, the eggs quietly glow.

Oil on canvas, 101x76cm

Styx Valley, Tasmania

The painting was inspired by a visit to the "Big tree reserve" which is a few hectares of old forest surrounded by industrial monoculture.

Once the valley was full of these forest giants emerging from a rich rainforest of sassafras and myrtle.

The little that remains of this wild and precious ecosystem is still threatened.

Oil on canvas, 130x130cm

These three small fish ended their days in a fish market alongside hundreds of others. My painting of them is intended to acknowledge the fact that even small, seemingly insignificant lives, have magnitude by their existence alone.

Oil on plywood, 100x180cm

Hover describes the eerie sense of a presence in the bush. A haunting, fleeting feeling of not being alone that is paralleled by the flickering light pervading the scene. Foreground trees dissolve as we are drawn deeper into the landscape, leaving our physical state behind and connecting with the spirituality of the landscape.

Acrylic on linen, 118x90cm

This painting shows Kay's depiction of Ngapa or water dreaming, an important story for the Warlpiri people. The painting shows a soakage site in Kay's homelands near Willowra. This site provides the group’s water supply; the women go to the soakage site and dig for water. The depth they will need to dig is dependant upon recent rainfall.

Acrylic, 147x147cm

My choice of Lignum (Muehlenbeckia florulenta) as a subject frees my instinctive desire for literal representation. I wanted to show the essence of Lignum, to depict its colour, its symmetry and its jumble resulting from environmental forces, and also as I worked, let the unexpected forces that appeared in the painting lead me to the end. The Blue Wren is a vital accent.

Oil on canvas, 76x102cm

From the subtitle of Tim Flannery's book, Here on Earth...

Which I was reading at the time of painting this...

And back to Adelaide for the subject matter...

Snapped in Auntie Bub's front yard in Mitchell Park last year...

An early blossom...

Acrylic on linen, 138x153cm

Orange Pictoglyph is a landscape suggesting the essential elements of a world in balance with nature. The line work in this painting pays homage to petroglyphs, pictographs and fossils found in the galleries and museums of nature’s past. They are a graphic remnant from an era where balance with nature was perhaps, the reality.

Aerosol, resin on canvas, 92x92cm

I started making my birds as art to stick up randomly in the streets. Art that would give people little unexpected surprises - get their attention, make them smile and view their environment with fresh eyes.

Oil on canvas, 100x200cm

Quandongs with their culinary and aesthetic appeal enable me to create a painting using an “impasto” technique of textures, lustres and sensual colours showing the fruit overflowing from an old favourite basket and spilling off the canvas.

Resin, ink, acrylic, 150x150cm

The Otways National Park is the ultimate flora and fauna experience; abounding with a rich diversity of birdlife and exquisitely beautiful ancient rainforest. The aerial impression of the land is truly spectacular and unique... to see it from a bird’s eye view gives us all a whole new perspective.

Watercolour, 70x54cm

I first saw Xylocarpus granatum when on the Daintree River looking for crocodiles. It was among many other mangroves lining the river but stood apart because of the fruit. It impressed me so much that it initiated my personal project to paint the mangroves of Australia. This is the first one completed.

Pencil and gouache, 100x130cm

I have numerous sketch books with images from visiting art galleries and museums. The act of drawing encourages one to look harder and longer in an attempt for greater understanding. This work revisits the initial museum experience from sketch book to a larger format with an emphasis on the drawing process.

Water based artists’ inks on paper, 37x165cm

I am farmed in foul water, though species in my family are dying. I have no special plumage: I am, cold, squat, and dull. I will bite you, pinch you, and steal your food. I’m a little campfire myth. Someone loves my song. I bring subtle hues to soften brash colours. You and I are fractions of a whole.

Pastel, 80x99cm

Giant cuttlefish display spectacular colours and behaviour during their annual spawning in upper Spencer Gulf. As a diver, I’ve been enchanted by these intriguing animals. As an artist, I’ve captured one fleeting moment. As an amateur ecologist, I’m aware noise and hyper-saline outflow from a desalination plant threaten their future.

Watercolour, 96x75cm

Not Lake Eyre, Torrens or Frome, but one of thousands of saltpans patterning this land. Pinks and mauves to ochres and indigo paint the crazy paving left by evaporation. Life captured: crustaceans, insects, vegetation – lifted by salt, held as any moisture dries. Always waiting for rain.

Etching, 120x110cm

The Cockatoos are drawn within their coastal lands of Kangaroo Island. The Sheoaks with their undergrowth extend to the high shore line. Traces of seacharts and plant lists acknowledge our presence. The Cockies fly with images of vegetation on their wings, a biological memory of their origins. This is a limited edition, multiple plate etching with chine collé.

Watercolour on paper (monotype), 95x125cm

To speak about water, I use water; to acknowledge time, I employ time, taking days to work on each printing plate. The pigments suspended in water must seek their own level, yet as I lift the plate they retreat, wave-like, leaving 'tide lines' with each ebb and flow.

Ink, earth pigment, charcoal on paper, 103x143cm

Gulaga, symbolising the mother, is described by the Yuin people of the south coast of New South Wales as the place of ancestral origin and is a basis for Aboriginal spiritual identity. In 2006, Gulaga was renamed and handed back to the Yuin. The panels explore the power of this birthing place.

Etching, 36x40cm

Set against the still Australian bush, a tree of antiquity has evolved its shape through the continent’s harsh seasons. Fire-burnt trunks build onto each other, clustering leaves radiate and long stems reach upwards, framed by a dry blue skyline. Time passes. Scattered seedlings shoot to eventually become another mature Xanthorrhoea, watched over by the terrain of an ancient landscape.

Watercolour, 41x32cm

I eat nature and nature eats me

Complexity developed from my simple idea of referencing Albrecht Dürer’s Das Grosse Rasenstuck to comment on environmental degradation. Locally, I’ve found some weeds useful for native species (and delicious to paint) while the only native plant depicted is a prickly pest; even the debris developed an intrigue all of its own.

Pastel, 88x100cm

Time and tide wait for no man

Degradation of habitat, human influence and changing environmental factors is pushing inhabitants of the natural world to the limit of their endurance. For many species in a weakened state, they are swimming against the tide and time has run out.

Oil on paper, 120x160cm

The be-wilderness of the Powerful Owl looking over his real estate disappearing as the urban sprawls. My artwork is concerned with advocacy of wildlife, its beauty, diversity, necessity and vulnerability in this evolving world.

Relief print, 84x76cm

I dive for kaiyar (crayfish) and risk my life, but it is the way I learn how to live and survive. It is my culture. My ancestors say that when you come across zurrumui zurrumuil (school of yellow tail trevally fish) it is a sign that there is something big approaching.

Words in italics are in Kala Lagaw Ya, the language of the Western Torres Straits.

Watercolour, 51x35cm

The resting place depicts the cool temperate rainforests of south-western Tasmania, home too many endemic speciesa. A Macleay's swallowtail butterfly (Graphium macleayanus) rests on a hard water fern during its search for nectar from native laurel and leatherwood trees. The delicate butterfly and mosses dramatically contrast the host trees, Myrtle-Beech and Sassafras.

Second of six paintings in the series 'Textures of the forest'

Pencil on silked board, 110x80cm

The genesis for Shrike’s Larder may be found in the peculiar habit of the European shrike which impales corpses on thorns as a ‘larder’ and in Goya’s Los Desastres de la Guerra (1810-1820).The work records the flotsam and jetsam of the continuing battle between nature and man.

Watercolor and graphite, 65x40cm

Evolution is such a strange notion to me. It makes a perfect sense when I think of it, but watching nature doesn’t tell me the same story. Perhaps we are in the present time and never have a real feeling of time passing, especially such a long, long time.

Charcoal and watercolour, 80x64cm

Penguins are my most reliable muse, but after this was drawn it become known that the Little Penguin has even more reasons to be blue. Its numbers on Granite Island have gone into a sudden and rapid decline.

Graphite/coloured pencil , 126x106cm

Look at this elephant. Individually, each small part may seem unconnected, but put them all together and you know what it is. You can 'see' the completed bigger picture. The natural world is also a montage of small, seemingly unconnected parts, but every part is necessary to complete the big picture. You just need to 'see' it.

Colour pencils, pastel, 78x97cm

These objects carry memories about their past lives. The dry, colourless flower retains its beautiful shape. The intricate shell designs remind us that they once lived, and marks on stones suggest the Earth’s own history. These objects illustrate how precious and fragile life is. A heart-shaped pebble symbolises commitment to preserving the beauty and purity of Nature.

Pastel on paper, 93x73cm

The last sun’s rays catching the lower iris of the resting spoonbill were so striking, and enhanced its beautiful rich colour. The soft, ruffled, white head feathers, with the wrinkled weathering of the greenish facial skin, and the smooth, dull pink wing feathers provided great contrasts of textures and hues.

Graphite pencil on paper, 73x88cm

While native flora and fauna are well adapted to live in our harsh environment, their contribution to a balanced ecosystem continues after death when they can provide nourishment and habitats for other individuals or species. This drawing seeks to emphasise that beauty in natural forms also can endure after death.

Pencil on paper, 29x42cm

Babirusa, a vulnerable Wallacea endemic, is one of most bizarre mammals. The upper canines of this special ‘pig’, which are fragile, penetrate the top of the snout. The skin is rough, wrinkled, bristly, and almost hairless. The skin textures make it wonderful subject for pencil.

Colour pencil, 74x74cm

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

- William Wordsworth ‘Intimations of Immortality’

Scientific analysis of this granite tor could tell us a great deal about the Earth's past.

Concerning the future, we often look for portents in the natural world.

Watercolour on paper, 26x36cm

Every now and then in nature you’re presented with something so surprising that it defies imagination. Beautiful natural sculptures created by the dynamic twists and turns of dying yakka flowers as they slowly make their way back to earth.

Graphite on paper, 127x188cm

In this piece, I chose not to identify any of the individual skulls. Family is an observation about how similar all of the skulls are. How similar our skulls are to the primates that lived before us, and to those that live beside us today. ‘Man’ is not separate from Nature.

Watercolour, 53x72cm

A Common Ringtail Possum (Pseudocheirus peregrinus) is peering out from its drey. This possum is a colour variation common to the mid north coast of New South Wales. Most, but not all; ringtail possum populations construct dreys, spherical structures usually made in a shrub or tree fork within dense vegetation. The possum transports the building material bundled in its coiled tail.

4 plate etching , 104x54cm

Walking the beach, observing the tides, the shift in sand, I begin to see a drama unfolding. Three more trees have fallen today, taking their place among the many that have fallen before them.

The dog has an infinite choice of sticks to fetch.

Aluminium, 172x84x104cm

The initial suggestion came from an unacknowledged sketch in an antique natural history book. The concurrence of sweeping lines, segmented shapes and a general mechanical feel just demanded a metal sculpture. The practicalities of curving and fabricating aluminium were both challenging and intriguing.

Wire mesh, copper, 130x70x70xcm

Birdcage is a continuation of an artistic exploration into the lives of migrant animals, in particular, swallows and other winged creatures. These fragile birds have come together to form a cage in a geometric arrangement, in contrast to the freedom of the journeys they make across the world.

Kiln formed glass, 200x50x6cm

Life emerged out of water and water's role in life is elemental. There is a constant and dynamic tension between the nature of life – change, evolution, transience – and the human desire for material consumption, stability and permanence. The prehistoric and universal image of concentric circles rippling outwards from an impact underpins the notion of connection and repercussion: the ripple effect of one's actions.

Ceramic, 90x120x60cm

The instantly appealing image of the rabbit belies the catastrophic impact its introduction (along with the fox) had on many species of native mammals. In this work I wish to suggest a tension between the rabbits’ appeal and the idea of a population at odds with its environment.

Glass, bronze, steel, oil, acrylic, white marble, 40x27x27cm

Evaporation versus gravity. Will gravity draw the water droplet from the leaf or will evaporation triumph? The beauty lies in the simplicity of this idea; the water droplets highlighting the form and function of the leaf's design feature of channelling water. All profits from this sale will be donated to Animals Australia Inc.

Cast bronze, 4x59x3.5cm

When there ain't too much left of nothing...

Bronze and aluminium wire, mild steel, 55x46x22cm

Using wire mesh creates a weightless feel, highlighting my sea-creatures' strong characters and ephemeral qualities. This confident-looking cowfish is my way of embracing nature with its beauty and quirkiness. It's a reminder that diversity is good and necessary, and needs to be celebrated.

What type of fish are you?

Bronze, copper, marble, 70x112x30cm

In the tropical depths lives the nautilus, one of the most beautiful of the cephalopods, which sadly is being over-fished because it gives poor fisherman a good return when they sell the shell to tourists.

Vintage bible, wire, 45x32x6cm

Hard corals are a critical component of our fragile marine systems. They have the ability to absorb and transform carbon monoxide. Our impact on the marine environment through carbon emissions is threatening their very existence. Words alone will not save me is a call for action from those in denial.

Glass, 28x18x18cm

My work considers the dynamic qualities of bonds between people and nature, and the significance of memory in relationship to place. Layered, linear pattern evokes the experiences and memories of place and landscape that have built up over a lifetime to form an individual’s sense of identity.

Hot sculpted glass, 28x10x10cm

The medical gaze within the body is calculating, inquisitive and penetrative. This incisive gaze works within the parameters of the internal space of the body. The preservation of the anatomical body has been important to many throughout history, but its display has been limited to only a few.

Copper, 70x110x100cm

With its venomous dorsal and pelvic fin spines, and its stunning fan-like pectoral fins, this is a creature of beautiful danger. To bring it forth in copper and impart in it some personality is what I have endeavoured to do.

Stoneware ceramics, steel, 171x140x44cm

I am fascinated with bacteria, succulents and fungi. I reference their architectural forms, which are mathematical, dynamic, with a seeming defiance of gravity. I capture their essence by using multiple and repetitive elements at an enhanced scale. I reference vibrant fungi colours which emphasizes the surreal, provocative and mysterious nature of life.

Multi-fired ceramic, 20x60x60cm

Ceramic is the perfect medium to describe the fragility of ocean life and these forms remind us of the delicate balance required to ensure survival. A sense of the erotic is invoked in the repeated patterns that exist both in sea life and the human body, inviting exploration of the relationship between humans and the natural world.

Printed feathers, string, 34x44x3cm

As Artist in Residence at the British Museum I have been researching and drawing featherwork from Oceania. In Papua New Guinea, the Highlanders wear the bird of paradise feathers to attain the beautiful qualities of the bird. The wearer of Edward Lear’s Headdress would acquire his artistic talents and the beauty and wisdom of the parrots he painted.

Hot blown glass, 26x26x126cm

Inspired by traditional Aboriginal woven Eel traps from South Australia and Victoria. The shape of the glass eel trap mirrors the organic shape of traditional eel traps and the long sinuous form of the eel. The artist acknowledges the support of the Canberra Glassworks and the Thomas Foundation.

Acrylic on carved timber, 30x75x30cm

I have lived at Utopia my whole life, caring for the land and keeping a connection with my family’s ancestors through the Dreaming of my country. My wife Josie and I go out looking for the right trees which we carve to make our sculptures. We use an axe, tomahawk and a large rasp. My carving is of an angry camp dog.

Porcelain, glass, each 16x20x20cm

We must all take responsibility for reducing the ominous effects of the human carbon footprint and for preserving the wonderful diversity of this amazing planet, our home. This is no place for sceptics and nay sayers. There is no room for apathy. Every One can make a difference.

Bronze, 48x20x41cm

I associate Pelicans with prosperity, the breaking of a drought and the joy of them breeding for the first time in many years on the floodwaters of Lake Eyre, the thrill of seeing them soaring gracefully overhead high up in the thermals and their regal stature as they balance on a post.

Hand blown glass, 24x77x32cm

This is a composition of three forms created in glass. Each form of particular beauty in its own right, also has symbolic significance. The olive, peace. The almond, hope. The acorn, life.

Mild steel, 195x70x70cm

Cellular is part of a series of works which refer to the constant change in structure of cell formations, as well as how these mirror larger structures and changes in our physical and social environments.

Glass, 20x40x30cm

Drawn from the colours and grain of the native Red Gum, Eucalyptus tereticornis is an abstracted representation of the unique aesthetic found in the Australian landscape. With a strong technical approach to my chosen medium of glass, I use line, colour and form to capture like qualities in my natural surroundings.

Ceramic, wood, steel, 51x155x37cm

Up Shit Creek is a whimsical look at the possible future of Australia’s flora and fauna. I hope that the work will make people pause, enjoy, and consider their obligations to all inhabitants of this planet.

Brooch: Silver, coated copper, stainless steel, 3x6x7cm

What Remains alludes to memories imbedded within natural objects collected as tokens of a place or time. From scattered seed pods, or shells on a beach, a few are chosen and cherished. Jewellery, with its connotations of preciousness and ability to suggest inherent fragility of the organic, becomes a means to preserve a memory and communicate the essence of the original form.

Glass beads and thread, 18x30x25cm

Ghost Tulips of the Deep reflects the importance of respecting and protecting all marine life. Unseen and only recently discovered, these fragile, deep sea tulips run the risk of becoming ‘ghosts’ in a collection, suspended in time.

Oil on board, 90x120cm

Dismemblem is a statement about how I feel as a young Australian trying to identify with cultural symbols.

What does it mean to be Australian today?

After all, we Aussies are the only people who regularly eat our coat of arms…

Graphite pencil, 30x126cm

Humanity has always been involved in a symbiotic relationship with plants. Fungi are more than a delicate, intricate and beautiful life form. Ethnomycology (the study of human-fungal interactions) has consciousness expanding qualities, and therefore deep roots embedded in the religious traditions, writings and indigenous knowledge of mankind.

Graphite pencil on paper, 50x65cm

I chose the wolf because it depicts the essence of nature in the wild. The eyes illustrate the confidence in which the wolf rules his environment. Using graphite gave me the effects I desired, as the fur and the fog illustrate, while still allowing me to stay in control.

Acrylic on linen, 151x60cm

A forthcoming and extraverted individual, Julie-Anne has also revealed herself to be a confident young artist, depicting her mother’s Dreamings from Alhalkere country. She has painted emu, sugarbag and other bushtucker in this story. According to Julie-Anne, “Everything, this is everything I have watched Josie paint. My mother teaches me good way”.

Impasto and oil paints, 50x40cm

I have become completely obsessed with detail. I feel that the only way to capture the true essence of nature is to refine it to the core elements. It is so vital, yet so often forgotten.

Oil on canvas, 76x100cm

After years of drought, the Murray River and its empty backwaters have finally been filled by the flood, bringing the parched landscape back to life. This painting depicts the beauty of a healthy, full and thriving river on the flats of South Australia’s Blanchetown.

Charcoal on Canson paper, 112x80cm

I am interested in the notion of duality, and the zebra is an extraordinary paradox of light and dark. In our culture, animals are both ennobled and debased, their fate being intrinsically determined by us. This implies that we are above nature, but we are not. We are nature.