Walking at dusk with ghosts of the forest 2026

Gouache and oil pastel on Japanese paper

1500mm x 900mm

 

I walk through this forest every day. There’s a gap in the canopy where you can see the sky softening at dusk. The trees that filled that space are lying down where they fell five years ago, when 25,000 of them either snapped or heaved their root balls out of the ground, falling across houses, cars, power lines, sheds, fences and roads during the storm of 2021.

 

They lie under a shroud of debris, weeds and re-growth, but those that were cut into manageable lengths line the edges of carparks and roads, repurposed into natural barriers, chest high. 

 

I use pastel to make impressions of the chainsaw marks and growth rings, marvel at their size and presence, and breathe in the sounds and smells of night approaching. They hover in my imagination like ghosts. 

 

Frogs and owls announce the hour, and long strands of bark gently slap the trunks in the evening breeze. Soon the moon will rise.

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Currently entered into the Fleurieu Biennale Art prize