Upon returning to Australia, after spending time going back and forth and sometimes residing in the United States, I took up a position as artist in residence at Editions Gallery, Western Australia. Living and working with other artists is an education in itself.
Fellow painter Keith Looby prompted me to explore more painterly qualities in my work, while during the years I shared a studio with John Beard in Fremantle would help deepen my exploration into abstraction. The vitality and intensity with which both of these artists approached their work left quite an impact on me, subsequently affecting the way I approached my own art practice.
Significant support in the form of both patronage and exhibition opportunities by Alan Delaney, from Delaney Galleries in Perth, also assisted greatly to my uncompromising dedication to my art. Pat Corrigan in later years was another figure to emulate this support.
Some of the great masters, of course, provided me with great inspiration. Seventeenth century Spanish artist Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez, for his monumental figurative paintings which reveal, upon closer inspection, the most amazing abstract painterly qualities, has to this day had a great impact on my work. The later post-impressionist movement was highly inspirational, particularly artists like Van Gogh, whose work was explosive and brilliant.
A more complete list should also include American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock and later Roy Lichtenstein and more recently Jeff Koons, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. I resonate particularly these days with Pat Stiers work, Lynda Benglis and Louise Bourgeois. I was influenced as well by the Australian artists Tony Tuckson, Brett Whiteley and Ian Fairweather, primarily due to the energy that their work conveys.
My entrée into environmental artwork was not my first shift in media and style. I began my artistic life as a figurative painter, attracted to that form of expression for its narrative qualities. During art school I had moved from making figurative paintings to more abstract work. This evolving abstraction and change in identity became an open, abundant field to explore. Free from the confines of structured figurative elements, I was able to work the canvas and paper, sometimes with paint stripper. After many years of painting, I found myself becoming more courageous and open to the exploration of new materials and technology, thereby able to stretch my self beyond the realms of paintbrush and canvas.
In addition to the conscious exploration of new materials and technology, I have found that being alert and open to the benefit of accidents occurring in my art-making processes have lead to some of the most profound breakthroughs in my work.