I completed this painting on the 3rd July. It depicts a scene from my Hill End residency in 2016 and is painted on a swallow shroud created at Pirate’s Nowra site in 2015

I completed this painting on the 3rd July. It depicts a scene from my Hill End residency in 2016 and is painted on a swallow shroud created at Pirate’s Nowra site in 2015
TOP: Between Two Worlds (Summer Cuckoo 2019 Cockatoo) 2021 cuckoo, rabbit skin glue, silk thread, gesso, bitumen and oil on canvas 61 x 51 cm $311
BOTTOM: Between Two Worlds (Summer Cockatoo and Bandicoot 2013) 2021 cockatoo, bandicoot, rabbit skin glue, gesso, bitumen and oil on canvas 120 x 158 cm $1896
My work Day and Night is a finalist in the NOW prize.
Day and Night (Autumn Cockatoo and Flying Fox) 2011/2019. Cockatoo, flying fox, silk stitch, bitumen, oil, caput mortuum, pipeclay and rabbit skin glue on canvas. 101 x 162 cm. $2045.
Artist Statement
Road boundaries kill animals, like this flying fox and white cockatoo in Canberra 2011. I dissolve the boundary between animal subject and art object by placing decomposing animals on canvas to infest the weave. After documenting their disintegrated remains, I steep the rancid cloth in vinegar and hang it in the elements to cure before stretching onto a wooden frame. I seal the evocative bodily stain or shroud with hot rabbit skin glue and spend weeks, months, or years, in its presence. In 2019, I felt drawn to this shroud and its accompanying photographs of decayed subjects, my two younger children running in a field, their loyal father in his cowboy hat, and two white cockatoos watching from dead trees in the dry Monaro. I apply the bitumen and oil of Europeans to depict the dead creatures, and sacred pipeclay given by a recently deceased Aboriginal mentor negotiates the ground.
Darren and I set up an array of creatures this morning amidst the mozzies and heat, some of which were given to me by a friend Danny who was taught taxidermy by my father years ago. There were lots of surprises, a micro bat and what looks to be a Cuckoo amid my collection of ringtail, mouse, leather jacket, starfish, wonga pigeon and the crowning glory, a Southern Boobook owl with wings outstretched.
Finally finished panel 12 featuring superb and variegated fairy wren couples with tiny sun orchid and horned orchid. Still working on panel 11