I have found the east coast of Australia a fascinating subject to revisit because of its dramatic topography and light. Headlands and steep escarpments provide me with the great diagonals that create the dynamic compositions that most excite me.

Using metallic and non-localised colours these landscapes combine photo-derived imagery with abstraction’s focus on surface. Like a vinyl record scratch in music sampling, where an analog medium becomes digital, my layering of styles creates a temporal disjuncture in traditional landscape painting.

Beyond the formal considerations beaches are endlessly absorbing because they are zones that are in a constant state of flux. The tide rises and falls, headlands slowly erode and tumble into the sea and geological strata can be observed. These processes of time bring to the foreground a heightened awareness of history passing. Observing that all is change and nothing ever stays the same is often accompanied by a sense of melancholy. This melancholy feeling is often the mood that I try to capture in my fleeting gestures caught in paint.