Opening night at Upriver, Down River 2023, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Australia.

There’s only sky out there, above and below, everywhere to be seen, 2023.
Modern fossils printed with plant derived plastic from original topsoils bowls from the Hunter Valley.

This work questions our place as part of earth systems and our responsibility to Country.

It is inspired by Tim Winton’s description of night on the Swan River (Cloudstreet). Winton describes a scene where earth, water and sky unite creating a continuous ink-dark sky-water-land worked with stars.

Using our own Hunter River as my thought flow path, I have reinterpreted Winton’s work using replicas of earth bowls made from Hunter Valley topsoils to follow the evening reflections of stars in black sky, mining lights in remote areas, streetlights from tiny towns, and finally, illuminations from the largest coal port in the world, Newcastle. 

After hand-fashioning bowls from topsoils representative of agricultural and mining rehabilitation in the Hunter Valley, I scanned and then printed their facsimile with plant-derived plastics.  I hope these ‘modern fossils’ prompt us to contemplate the environmental scars our concepts of dominion over the earth leave on our dwelling places and our food producing soils. What should caring for Country look like when we can print our own finger marks in replica earth?