About

I am a Melbourne-based artist with a practice in painting and small sculpture. I have recently  graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) from RMIT University. My recent work involves still life, hybrid portraits and layered palimpsests in sombre colour palettes.​​

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My practice has been inspired by the theory of dark ecology which challenges idealised tropes of nature and instead asks us to confront ecological damage, loss and entanglement. Instead of presenting the natural world as something separate or harmonious, my work acknowledges a world already shaped by extraction, colonial histories and extinction. According to Timothy Morton’s dark ecology theory, we are part of an ecological ‘mesh’ - plants, trees, birds, coral reefs, animals, fungi, bacteria as well as things that threaten our existence on a global scale such as plastic pollution, climate change and radioactive waste. 

 

Visualising the dark ecology aesthetic has been challenging. In my recent series, I have used the classic symbols of Vanitas that depict mortality and transience including rotting fruit, fossils and bones. I think they transpose well into contemporary art from their 18th century still life origins. The combination of Vanitas and dark ecology themes seems to open up a rich dialogue between historical art and contemporary ecology theory. Both the Vanitas tradition and dark ecology confront the trappings of death and ecological collapse by encouraging uncomfortable contemplation.  

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Moving forward, my practice will continue to critically examine how we interact with our environment and our nonhuman relatives using scientific research and speculative imagination as my guide. And, in the spirit of Morton’s ecological thinking, I will continue to focus on creating works that help people recover or rediscover the critical thinking that matters most in facing the Anthropocene, before it is too late.