Picture the familiar sensation of darkness; nighttime, the theatre, your wardrobe, before dreaming, and imagine that instead of darkness cloaking your senses, it’s an all consuming, unfathomable light. On occasion, a glint of sunlight would break through the cloud, or the sky would shift to a hue of darker grey, revealing threads of colour and light. But mostly, it’s white, white, everywhere. Aside from the visibility of hands, legs, feet and arms, a total white out is non-bodily, and yet, the whiteness itself is hardly empty. It’s composed of spirit and energy and in it you are enveloped in oneness.

History tells us that crisis has happened before and will continue to happen every century or so. While it does not justify nor bring comfort or relief to crisis, war crimes and injustice occurring at the hands of criminal corporations, governments and elites around the world, it does teach us an important lesson – after midnight sun, night will come again, after winter, flowers will bloom, after crisis, there is always a high.

The next day the photos came through: Gorgeous golden light, the glint of silver, a blur of copper feathers, faces of rage, determination, urgency, terror, focus. The images told a centuries old story of revenge and justice, interlaced with new associations I’ve imprinted from my contemporary experience. I

It’s the isolation of being in a metal tube in the middle of oblivion, totally unreachable and totally surrendered to a lack of control, that I feel wholly free to let my mind wander and race and explore and dream up all the wildest painting concepts.

I find it easier to paint arctic, icy landscapes in realism, rather than the Australian outback, because the outback is so uncanny, wild and untamed. It’s easier for me to evoke this through painterly shapes and marks rather than as perfect likeness.