Artist

My environmental photography explores the grave global issues that we face.  My work is influenced by authors like Al Gore, Professor Garnaut, Tim Flannery and Richard Heinberg.
I use photography as a palette for the creation of stimulating visual compositions which have a clear, concise visual and intellectual impact in the viewer’s mind.  My process involves connecting digital images in an ‘Escher’ like manner, grabbing a viewer’s attention with their visual vibrancy and the apparent way in which the pictures seem to shimmer and resonate.

My work has focused on the energy sector, exploring the generation, distribution and consumption of power.  The large photographic panels consist of spiralling interconnected images, suggesting the downward spiral caused to our environment by human reliance on carbon emitting, carbon based technologies.  Also the photographs with the abstracted repeated forms are analogies of human excesses and warped multiplied examples of our growing environmental negative outcomes.  However, within my work there are hopeful signs of regeneration and the power of nature to heal itself.

My Fire Series is based on the Black Saturday bush fires, which I fought with my wife Ursula at our property in Callignee.  Our property was devastated and my photographs are based on the distorted metal of our damaged property.  The multiple cubes or rather ‘boxes’ refers to the many homes that suffered the same fate, and also represent the ‘containers’ of people’s lives and possessions.  My fire series has enabled me to work through some of the intense emotional experiences of that horrific day and night by expressing the profound changes that overwhelmed our world by highlighting the new forms of the destroyed, into the beauty of a new beginning.

I feel that the Black Saturday fires are one of the consequences of global warming and hope that my work will stimulate discussion and encourage people to do something positive towards lightening the burden on our environment.   We have procrastinated too long and without action, I fear the gloomy predictions by the many environmental scientists may be realised.

After spending two years rebuilding our Studio Gallery and Shed, and repairing all the damage to the house and gardens surrounding our house in Callignee, we discovered a one acre property on the outskirts of Wonthaggi, with a view over the wetlands towards the Wonthaggi wind turbines.  We have now built our new home and have begun the next chapter of our lives on the Bass Coast.

I have also retired from working in the Power Industry after nearly forty years , and have rediscovered my artistic journey, with a new series using some of the local icons as the base for my creations.  (these are currently at the printers)