What the leaves whispered, 2024

Paper and magnets, 0.8 × 11 × 18m, PS Artspace, Walyalup Fremantle, Western Australia

Recent immersion in the Pilbara prompted vivid memories of childhood, recalling happy times with my family in the remote WA town Marble Bar. Re-acquainting with the landscape I had not seen for 36 years, I found myself captivated by the ground – the dirt, the rocks, the textures, the plants. Ultimately, my memories drew me to spinifex, the native grass, Its beauty and fragility I overlooked it as a child, instinctively stepping around it to avoid its sharp spikes.

What the leaves whispered is an expanded drawing of spinifex from the Pilbara region of WA, its complex form represented by my own visual language and made with a simple palette of a single material, paper. The lines, originally drawn with ink on paper are transformed through cutting, and the paper becomes the line.