Flotsam & Jetsom
My practice explores the links between narrative and place through mixed media printmaking. Throughout my life, I have frequently moved from place to place, leaving me with a strange collection of unconnected memories and images. I am interested in the way that these fragments can take on a life of their own when recombined into a new story.
In Flotsam and Jetsam, I have melded imagery from my time as a mountain hiker and tall ship crew member. The scene is encircled by a linocut of Mt Rugby, from reference drawings made on a sailing trip to the south-west of Tasmania. Below the waves, tangled with papercut netting, lie the shipwrecks of the Leeuwin II and the Brig Amity. The Windeward Bound remains afloat but in harm’s way as a creature from the deep wraps its tentacles around the hull. These are all ships that have been a part of my personal history in Western Australia and Tasmania. The work brings them together into an archetypal scene from maritime mythology. The magenta sky signifies the otherworldly qualities of my made-up narrative.
