From early to mid-year 2022 I participated in the Mapping The Understories Project. The project facilitated by Hand Bent Banana Arts and NiCA aims to connect the stories of the natural ecology of areas with the human stories. Supported by the Australian Government’s Bushfire Recovery Program for Wildlife and their Habitat, the project aims to gather the stories of a region and trace the lines of deeper connections that run between and across the landscape and people.

For the first part of the project, long term residents of the Tallebudgera Valley in South East Queensland were interviewed regarding their personal histories and experiences with past bushfires while I sketched them using charcoal I have made from native and invasive species from the Valley.

The first five portraits formed part of a showcase exhibited at Hand Bent Banana in Tallebudgera Valley in July 2022.

In December 2016 I was commissioned by Trent Fehey, editor of Slam Skateboarding Magazine, to paint a skateboarding obstacle with the appearance of a giant magazine. The project was part of the Adidas Skateboarding Bring Your Build challenge, the ramp to be unveiled at the Gold Coast demo of the Adidas Away Days Team Tour on December 16. Slam Skateboarding wrote two online articles, one on the demo and one on the creation of the ‘skateable magazine’. http://www.slamskateboarding.com/magazine/articles/3474-adidas-away-days-australia-tour-gold-coast

http://www.slamskateboarding.com/magazine/articles/3481-we-made-a-skateable-magazine-video-and-photos

In December 2016 I was informed that my painting For Mum had won the People’s Choice Award at the 2016 Eutick Memorial Still Life Awards, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery. This prize is in addition to the Staff Choice Award awarded on the opening night.

Also in December, 2016 EMSLA judge Nat Thomas wrote a great blog entry on the exhibition, including a paragraph on my work and photos. https://nattysolo.com/2016/12/05/winners-are-grinners-the-10th-emsla-award-coffs-harbour-regional-art-gallery/

In November 2016 my painting For Mum won the Staff Choice Award at the 2016 Eutick Memorial Still Life Awards, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery. The painting, dedicated to my Mum who sadly passed away July, became a cathartic vessel that helped me through the grief and gave me a focus in the painful weeks following her passing. Over 250 hours of painting went into it and I know Mum would be proud. Following is the passage I wrote for the EMSLA Catalogue.

When I began this painting I had no idea I would be dedicating it to my Mum. After hearing of Mum’s cancer in late July, I realised this painting, which depicts Chrysanthemums infested with caterpillars, might be about her. Four days later she passed away. I know Mum wanted me to finish this painting and enter it in the EMSLA, so I made an extreme effort to get it done and entered. Thankfully it is a finalist and I get to share with the world this object that became a symbol of so many things and into which I poured so much time, emotion, grief, pride, love and just a couple of tears. 

So it’s February 2016 and I’ve finished building my wordpress.org website. It’s been a steep learning curve and frustrating at times but I think the result is a good, clean and simple site that showcases my best work.

This year started well with my 2015 Eutick Memorial Still Life Awards entry You Can’t  Put Your Arms Around a Memory winning the Popular Choice Award, and also selling.

2015 was a diverse and exciting year. It saw success as a finalist in the Eutick Memorial Still Life Awards and the Moreton Bay Region Art Awards, and inclusion in the curated show Subversion at Tortuga Studios, Sydney.

Completely out of left field, I also saw success on the Channel 10 game show Family Feud as part of the Anderson Family, winning five consecutive nights and walking away with a car and over $33 000!

This public exposure was not my first for 2015 as I had previously made international news as a result of Queensland Museum announcing my discovery, a year earlier, of a 23 million year old fossilised rainforest in the Tallebudgera Valley. Two radio interviews followed as well as an ABC online front page story.

Also, another of my artworks, my chilli sauce Yowie Wowie, took out 2nd Prize in the Savoury Sauces section of the 2015 Gold Coast Show. Yowie Wowie is an organic, wild-fermented, Louisiana-style hot sauce and the labels are hand-coloured, hand-pulled, editioned lino-prints. I’m currently working on making it available commercially.