Let me tell you about my practice. It’s about shearing sheds mainly – that Australian agricultural icon that holds the weight of an a whole country’s identity in its architecture. Creating artwork about that has been the mainstay of my practice since 1984 when I was working as a governess in north Queensland and I made my first shearing shed painting – Read about the Charlotte Plains project that celebrated 40 years since that first painting. Since then I’ve created artwork that has portrayed more than 100 sheds from Tasmania to Mt Isa. Read more about the shed at “Deeargee” which was the hundredth shearing shed. 

It’s a topographical practice – about what a subject looks like. Making visual stories about rural Australia makes me happy. I know that there are other stories that can be told. (I have an undergraduate degree in Visual Arts ).

Sometimes, when making artwork of what I see, I also find myself exploring what I feel, or what I have learnt about a site, or an experience.

Sometimes I tell these other stories – not because it aligns with current contemporary art theory, but because I want to. 

Shadowing Tom
For example, when I was making artwork about the shed at Newstead South, where Tom Roberts painted “The Golden Fleece” 120 years ago I couldn’t not see how the site had changed since he had been there. I created the series “Shadowing Tom”. Exploring his place there led me down the rabbit holes of the Stacks at The State Library of NSW