So, can you tell me a little bit about the environment that you captured for these works and what significance it holds to you.
It’s up in Daintree, some of the oldest living rainforest in the world, and it's around the Mossman River which runs through Mossman at KuKu Yalanji land. It’s just magnificent land.
You live out of Australia but are drawn back to it. What do you love most about capturing Australian landscape compared to other places? And how do you think your connection to the environment deepened after you left?
My previous work has been all over the world. I think the Australian art scene is dominated by depictions of the landscape, because it is just such an overwhelming experience to be in it. There’s nowhere like it. For people’s initial time visiting, it's like landing on Mars. It's vibrant, it's alive, it's robust. Even the sounds of the bush here compared to in Europe, the constant presence of wildlife, it's truly magical.
The Australian landscape is why I do landscape. I think it's that experience of being an Australian, even growing up in the city, the surrounding landscape is such a dominating experience. It’s unique, and that’s what this series is dedicated to. My connection is absolutely developing, there's just such endless inspiration wherever you are. I’ll always be more drawn to the landscape of a place than the people in it.
Tell us about the genesis of this series. Did you come up with the idea for the series while you were on site, or did it develop later?
Despite being commissioned to work in the Daintree for another project, the series I'm showing at Gallerysmith is something I've wanted to do from outset. This idea that the landscape unfolded like this. When I'm in the bush that’s my experience. Everywhere I look I feel utterly immersed. So that's the kind of feeling I was trying to convey in this series. You are sort of in it but at the same time hovering above it. I love that immersive feeling, everything's a bit twisted and there are multiple perspectives and vanishing points.
All of your works are composed of thousands of individual images. How do you deal with having so much material to work with?
The material was a big challenge when I was starting out. But I have built up a great system of understanding what I've taken and cataloguing images in a certain way so that I can easily get to where I need once the work starts building. That organizational aspect is important. I would go crazy sifting through thousands of photos if I hadn’t built up a system.
Is there a stage of the creative process that excites you more than others?
When I have just got the idea and I’m on location, and I'm just at the early stage that's exciting. I’m trying to take photos to create the works. The other stage I really enjoy is the end. Doing the last 20% which takes 80% of the time. You’ve got the work, you're just going in and tweaking things. That is very enjoyable and very relaxing for me. I can have music on, because this part is less about creating as it is finessing. Although the changes I make are minor, they are also endless so in that last part of work when you compare getting from 80% to 100%, the differences feel huge.
And just a little bit more about your practice, it requires a strong sense of discipline. Are there any more aspects that you find difficult?
No, I wouldn't say it's difficult. It’s labour intensive and time consuming, but they're skills I learned when I was working in film and visual effects. Nothing comes quickly so that discipline has become a habit in my years of practice.
Every work or series has its challenges. Sometimes it's at the beginning, at the concept stage that the challenges arise. Sometimes it’s during the shoots which have to be so rapid, because I need to collect so much and often there isn’t an opportunity to return to the location. I'll go to an area, and then the next day I’m 200 kilometers away so the shoot has to get done in an afternoon, or preferably the morning. At times I just don't have the luxury of waiting for the sun to move, or be covered by clouds so that I can capture different lighting. With this series I was there for a week which allowed more opportunity for variations.
Could you take me through the mechanics of how you make the works?
I take the photos, and then I find the parts of the photos that I want to use. For example with trees, to create that warping effect I rarely take a photo of a tree in one shot, it'll be up to a dozen pictures with different angles and lighting going up, standing at the base of the trunk, or standing near the top. That’s part of creating the elements that comprise the work. I use a wide-angle lens, and that helps create distortions and get movement into the work. Then I’m on my computer constructing elements that are made of more than one photo. After that I start putting it together onto the blank canvas, I play with the horizons and point of view and once I sort of have the composition it's a matter of going in, creating the water and the sky and cleaning up. In this case, there's texture in the water with the rocks and such, so there's a lot of blending and layering going on there.
What do you love about this new series?
That it’s Australian. Probably a bit of homesickness too. every time I go back to Australia, I look forward to being in nature, especially out in the bush. So, I think it was somewhat in a fit of nostalgia that a lot of this work was created.
Is there a particular impression that you hope people take from your works, or do you expect that people will make different connections to them than you do?
I'm always a bit surprised how some people respond, and I've always enjoyed that. The most unexpected reactions are the most interesting. I just hope they resonate with someone.