Traces Series (2001)

The Traces paintings were inspired by what appeared to be endless miles of ancient terrain as I flew over Australia. The vastness below was a visual metaphor for a long held feeling best described as being alone in existential space.

Thinking of how I might create ‘maps’ for this existential space, an idea crystallized while I was on a beach in Newcastle in New South Wales.  The rock and sea pebble colours were exactly the colours of the land.  Many of the sea snail trail markings in the rocks appeared to be miniature repetitions of landscape markings seen from the air.

Through a combination of pounding sea, and chemical action that sea-snails use to avoid being washed away. Criss-crossed patterns were incised in the rock surfaces.  Each different crossing of trails seemed to have traced a new grid of reference.  Like a visual metaphor for the wider and random mapping of the terrain I had flown across, it was the form I used for the Traces paintings.