Commission a portait
Would you like to honour someone special in your life with a portrait? What story would you like to tell?! Please get in touch for a chat or see more commissions here
Portrait of sisters Anjeli and Jasmin for their dad
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Future fighters 2022
Oil and acrylic on Australian ecoply board
Winner Peoples’ Choice Award Burrinja Climate Change Biennale 2023
The volunteers who respond to natural disasters are much loved members of our community. Aiden is my son’s good friend from school, and is a junior volunteer for the Upwey CFA with his sister Lexi. Their dad went with the Strike Team to Mallacoota in 2019/2020, and worked alongside the other emergency services after the 2021 storm in the Dandenong Ranges.
Every Wednesday night we hear the siren test and we know they’re at the station training - but they’re not just training for bushfires. They respond at all hours in all weather, putting their lives at risk to save ours, and their families wait anxiously, selflessly at home for them to return.
When five mountain ash trees fall through your house, or you’ve been flooded four times in one year, it’s impossible to ignore what climate scientists have been telling us for decades. 1.5 degrees is a big deal.
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Stories of Giants is a creative recovery project documenting the impacts of the June 9, 2021 storms in the Dandenong Ranges. Emma Jennings has painted a series of portraits of impacted residents and volunteers using timber salvaged from the storm. These trees lay over houses, cars, gardens, roads and schools. Salvaged by volunteers from Treasuring our Trees and Rescue Logs and prepared by Monbulk Men's Shed.
These are powerful examples of how communities support each other in emergencies and how Climate Change natural disasters must be taken seriously. I can't express enough my gratitude to these wonderful people who allowed me to tell their stories. Despite being personally impacted with damage to their own properties, they have all volunteered tirelessly to support our community and this project.
This work was shown at the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in 2024 and the Cardinia Cultural Centre in 2025.
Thank you to Sanford Tong, Rob Carew, Garry Sommerfeld and Andrew Curtis for these images.
The inconsistent distribution of compassion 2017
Oil and acrylic on Australian Hoopine board (private collection)
Hot words from cold governments, compassion for a select few. Bleached coral reefs and endangered species all around the globe. King tide floods, cyclones, bushfires in Autumn. Angry rising waters chasing communities inland. Displaced, scared and proud - our children and theirs. Young leaders alive with uncertainty, vulnerable, hungry for life, for a healthy future, for all life.
Anatomy of Existence 2016
Gouache and watercolour on handmade Japanese unryushi paper (private collection)
Winner Peoples’ Choice Award Dandenong Ranges
Open Studios Exhibition 2016 ‘Macro Micro’
In the natural world there is an underlying order, a system of mathematical rules and repetition. Resin casts of organ blood vessels reveal a branching pattern, identical to river systems, trees, crystals, coral, ferns, clouds, chromosomes, DNA, neurons, lightning, earthquakes, and on it goes.
It is called fractal geometry: the same shape repeating at every scale. It is easy to see that everything is connected. We are in everything, and everything is in us. Pattern is everywhere, micro and marcro.
It is the very fundamental anatomy of our existence.
Thomas 2016
Gouache and watercolour and oil on handmade Japanese unryushi paper (private collection)
A study in oil on paper