A piece of mind 2020-21

Living on a continent defined by fire means experiencing sudden, world-altering transformation. In a matter of hours, bushfires sweep away forests and homes in the night, replacing familiar landscapes with dense screens of smoke, floating cinders, and glowing, distorted light. Rendered in oil paint on intimate, small-scale canvases, this series examines the strange, dreamlike atmosphere of bushfire seasons through the lens of childhood perception. As a child, these catastrophic events felt like both a natural disasters and like an intrusion of magic a moment where an eerie spirit world bleeds through the opaque veil of smoke, transforming tail-lights into glowing apparitions and ordinary roads into unfamiliar terrains. Verity left a property as a kid due to fire warnings, and it burnt down forever changed, the flat clear windows that once blocked out the wind became drippings of glass. The valley was black. Our school burnt down, and we studied in demontatbles, and entire forest that was to be our playground for the next 4 years was flattened and i went to school with kids whose homes burnt down. It was so strange and unreal the damage and the change, we lived in a different world after the fire. This otherworldly atmosphere sits alongside a stark geopolitical reality. The ferocity of contemporary bushfires is not merely an act of nature, but the result of disrupted land stewardship. Prior to colonial invasion, Traditional Custodians managed fire through sophisticated, seasonal cultural burning techniques that maintained ecological equilibrium. Modern governance systems are only now attempting to catch up with these ancient practices. By scaling these immense, terrifying events down to small, quiet windows, the series invites viewers to reflect on memory, environmental vulnerability, and the vital necessity of returning to Indigenous land management and sovereignty.