I Wouldn’t Be Alive.
I Wouldn’t Be Alive is a site-specific installation that is inspired by both tranquility and fear. Heavily inspired by an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive, a television series which reenacts exciting tales of human survival, and my own personal fear of the ocean, I reconstructed a very specific scene that was a vision of beauty and agony. A man who was lost at sea encountered a swarm of jellyfish, a beautiful sight, so still and vibrantly glowing beneath the water. Their translucent shapes moving with the current, until the current pulled this man into the swarm and he was stung repeatedly. It seemed almost bittersweet.
By installing into a small gallery space and creating an immersive installation there are feelings of stillness, wonderment and claustrophobia all at once. It’s a visual and sensory experience that is overwhelming and engaging at the same time. From one reenactment another is created, and so the audience becomes a part of the reenactment and the cycle continues.
Tree Rugs.
Curated by iAM Projetcs for the new Gasworks redevelopment. The Gasworks site is pretty iconic here in Brisbane, it's an old gasometer that has become the centrepiece for a new development of apartments, restaurants and retail spaces.
Transforming what are typically worksite construction materials, I created a site-specific, outdoor installation for the Generate exhibition. Employing craft techniques to fabricate colourful adornments for the trees in the park area at Gasworks, the contrast between the natural world and the built environment became exaggerated. Through the use of vivid colours and angular shapes that mimic the repetition of patterns found in the original and iconic Gasometer Frame.
Cabinet of Cities. Invisible Curiosities.
“... from the number of imaginable cities we must exclude those whose elements are assembled without a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse. With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire, or it’s reverse, a fear.” Italo Calvino
Mailbox 141 is a gallery space housed in a stairwell on Flinders Lane in Melbourne. 19 tiny hand painted sculptures made from clay and crystals for the 19 tiny window boxes.
Cabinet of Cities. Invisible Curiosities interconnected two main ideas that within themselves had no particular commonality. Somehow, obscure lines were drawn between the two, creating a panoramic story within the boxes of Mailbox 141. Creating a site-specific installation around the premise of two very different books that both engage and inspire me: A Cabinet of Curiosities: A pictorial inventory of Albertus Seba’s collection of natural specimens, and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. One is imagery described through the use of words, the other is the natural world represented in pictures.
Electroreception.
A collaboration with Tristan Houghton, film making/director for the Seven with Another sixth edition. With the theme being six, we used our supernatural powers and tapped into our sixth senses to create this work. My end of the part involved constructing this beyond neon shark with laser beam eyes. Tristan's contribution was a film that was shown inside the sharks mouth.
What started as a dream and escalated into a nightmare, eventually awoke to an idea for this collaborative project. A psychedelic shark attack. Using the idea that as human beings our sixth sense and intuition can be found in dreams, nightmares, premonitions and visions, this project took the vision from a dream and traversed it into the scientific realm. As it happens, sharks also share a sixth sense that enables them to sense electromagnetic fields in the sea.
This project draws from both inspirations and unites the two through the use of sculpture and film in this site-specific installation.
Falling for Fireworks.
An outdoor installation curated by Natasha Smith and Megan Cope in collaboration with UAP for the Art with Altitude Festival at DFO Brisbane. It was . Such an honour and an amazing undertaking! It has been the largest project I've worked on and was rewarding and challenging. The woven canopy was suspended between two buildings over a walkway. The top photo was taken by artist/photographer Joanne Thies. Please check out her lovely blog.
A little bit about the work:
Inspired by the concept of being immersed in tiny explosions of fireworks in the sky,Falling for Fireworks will also animate notions of mapping, history and navigation. With fire being one of the four elements in ancient philosophy and astrology, this installation seeks to imaginatively portray and amalgamate these ideas.
Constructed from vibrantly coloured nylon ropes and synthetic materials, the artwork will employ traditional craft-based techniques such as macramé, knitting and basketry weaving for its construction. Knotted and netted in vivid colours, the work will be suspended within Airport Village’s Spine creating a captivating and colourful canopy.
