Why do you make art?
To share my experiences with others.
Who do you make it for?
Myself and anyone who is interested.
Do you have heroes? Is so, who, if not why not?
Not many, my family, and myself for fighting and surviving the Black Saturday fires.
Do you plan out a piece or do you wing it?
All of my paintings are planned from photographs that I have taken. I venture into the dark night and drive for hours until I have found the right composition/subject/light. Anybody who has joined me on one my photographic adventures knows I’m scared of the dark and will often jump back in the car at the earliest opportunity. When I make a painting I’m a bit obsessive about detail, but I’ll allow some unplanned brushwork (mistakes) to remain.
How do you know when you are finished?
That’s what deadlines are for.
What was the first exhibition/artwork you saw that blew your mind?
Goya’s Saturn devouring his son, I first saw this when my mother was working as the Slide Librarian at PIT in Bundoora (which then became RMIT) I used to take many days off school to go to her office and look at art and have naïve conversations with the ‘cool’ Fine art students. I encountered the painting when I was around eight years old; it had a nightmarish quality that has forever haunted me.
Name a recent exhibition that impressed you?
Julia Ciccarone’s recent exhibition at Niagara galleries.
If you could have any artwork in the world what would it be?
John Longstaff’s Gippsland, Sunday night, February 20th 1898
