Climate Change

Into the Black 2014. Screen print flocked with wood ash and inkjet print 80 X 180 cm. Exhibited: Kyoto Hanga, Kyoto Municipal Museum, Japan 2014

By Degrees 2008. Inkjet print. 45 X 100 cm. Collection: Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria

By Degrees 2008. Exhibited: 2112: Imagining the Future at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, 2011. Photo: Mark Ashkanazy

Remains 2009. Wood ash on concrete floor. Exhibited: Double Life at Project Space and Spare Room, RMIT University 2009.

Remains 2009 (details). Wood ash on concrete floor. Dimensions variable.

Where there's smoke... 2009. Inkjet prints. Each 80 X 100 cm. Exhibited: Double Life at Project Space, RMIT University 2009.

Fire Season#1 2013. Inkjet print. 50 X 110 cm. Exhibited: Local Weather, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria 2013.

Fire Season#2 2013. Inkjet print. 50 X 110 cm. Exhibited: Local Weather, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria 2013.

Fire Season#3 2013. Inkjet print. 50 X 110 cm. Exhibited: Local Weather, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria 2013.

Lost for Words 2008. Inkjet prints. Each 75 X 95 cm. Exhibited: Melt at Project Space and Spare Room, RMIT University 2008, Sydney University Gallery, NSW 2009 and in Cold Front at Lake Macquarie Art Gallery, NSW, 2008.

Lost for Words (24 words for snow) 2008. Wax on wood shelves and screenprint. Exhibited: Melt at Project Space and Spare Room, RMIT University 2008 and Sydney University Gallery, NSW 2009. Dimensions variable

Lost for Words (Account) 2008. Inkjet print on archival paper. 30 X 200 cm. Exhibited: Melt at Project Space and Spare Room, RMIT University 2008 and Sydney University Gallery, NSW 2009

These three pieces addressed the Arctic through a variety of media with the titles Lost (for) Words, a theme which could be interpreted in a number of ways - to represent my experience of the Arctic as ‘a place that was so stunningly beautiful it left me Lost for Words’; to relate to the effects of climate change (which leave us speechless) and to the indigenous population - the Inuit of Baffin Island - with whom I stayed for 4 days, finding their language incomprehensible. Their romanised text, based on Pitman shorthand, includes few vowels but many letters used rarely in English - k, q and j. I was aware that global warming might leave them without snow, for which they have 24 words, and these words would become redundant. In Lost for Words – 24 words for snow, I created wax tablets to represent ice and placed them on a shelf with its associations of: being left on the shelf, redundant, unwanted, out-of-date. I used paraffin wax, which is derived from petroleum, the very material that is causing climate change and the ice to melt.
The text in Lost(for)Words-account is a palimpsest of historical narratives of the difficulties of penetrating the ice of the North-West Passage. The single words in each frame that have ‘melted’ from the surrounding voices spell out nostalgia for the ice and snow.

Seeing Red 2014. Inkjet prints. Each 41 X 51 cm.

Carbon 2014. Screenprint. 20 X 15 cm. Collection: Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria