Completing my Master of Fine Arts focused my artistic vision and led me to explore the connections that surround human impact on islands. With my research examining two islands the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) and Lord Howe Island (NSW Australia) my final artworks examined the way our presence is impacting on these places with my resulting paper titled 'Anthropocene: Human Influence on Evolution and the Biosphere'. Since 2014 I have continued my investigations, with onsite research, on other small islands and World Heritage listed and isolated environments. Taking me to the Faroe Islands (the North Sea 2016), Venice (Italy 2017) and Deception Island (Antarctica 2017).
My present research and examinations are through immersive residencies as artist/tourist, traveller, observer — enabling me to look beyond the rhetoric (holiday advertising, documentaries and eco-traveller guides) of these islands to create artworks and installations that examine the impact of the Anthropocene and consumerism, on the Utopian destination. Due to the variety of mediums I have trained in, I feel that I have the various skills to explore my questions around the Anthropocene in ways that can readily connect with the viewer. Using my interdisciplinary eco-critical vision, I work to create a discourse via the traditions of printmedia, photography, and drawing, to the new media of video, sound, and installations.
I feel strongly that my investigations of islands have increasing global relevance, so one way to disseminate my artwork outside the gallery setting I have been delivering papers that relate to my research and resulting artworks, at conferences since 2014. These include Affective Habitat ANU in Canberra; 2015; AESS at UCSD San Diego CA; ISEAHK2016, Hong Kong; Arts in Society at UCLA Los Angeles CA 2015, Paris 2016, ISACS17 Karlsruhe Germany, the SEI (Sydney Environment Institute) University of Sydney 2016/17 and Eco-Arts Conference, University of Wollongong 2019. I have also given lectures at Spektrum (in association with Art Laboratory) Berlin, been part of a panel of artists at the Sydney Science Week and lectured at Edith Cowan University WA and Queensland College of Arts Griffith University Brisbane.
