Floating lady (after Hokusai)
1. Floating lady (after Hokusai) 2008, 3 m x 1.5 m diptych, oil on canvas, Acquired by Bunbury Art Gallery
Gage roads, strange fruit (after Terukata)
2. Gage roads, strange fruit (after Terukata) 2008, 3 m x 1.5 diptych, oil on canvas, referenced a shunga image attributed to Ikeda Terukata c.1905, exhibited Catherine Asquith Gallery 2010, exhibited in Erotica, James Makin Gallery 2011
Octopus and lady (after Hokusai)
3. Octopus and lady (after Hokusai) 2008, 152 x 101, oil on canvas
Castles down there
4. Castles down there 2008, 152 x 101 cm, oil on canvas
Leeuwin current 1
5. Leeuwin current 1 2008, 180 x 180, oil on canvas, finalist in Fleurieu Biennale SA 2009
Leeuwin current 2
6. Leeuwin current 2 2008, 180 x 180cms, oil on canvas
Biting 1
7. Biting 1 2009, 75 x 75cm, Leased Artsource
Shallows 1
8. Shallows 1 2008, 90 x 90 cm, oil on canvas
Shallows 2
9. Shallows 2 2008, 90 x 90 cm, oil on canvas
Gage roads 1
10. Gage roads 1 2008, 90 x 90 cm, oil on canvas
Gage roads 2
11. Gage roads 2 2008, 90 x 90 cm, oil on canvas
Siren 1
12. Siren 1 2008, 75 x 75 cm, oil on canvas
Siren 2
13. Siren 2 2008, 75 x 75 cm, oil on canvas
Red coral 1
14. Red coral 1 2008, 75 x 75 cm, oil on canvas
Red coral 2
15. Red coral 2 2008, 75 x 75 cm, oil on canvas
Dream of the fishermans wife
16. Dream of the fishermans wife Hokusai print c. 1810, held in the British Museum collection

The Floating World - 2009

The Floating World
was held by Johnston Gallery at Mossensons Gallery
115 Hay St, Subiaco, WA
11 March - 4 April, 2009

Thanks to receiving a Mid-career Fellowship from the WA Department for the Arts I was able to take the Floating World exhibition to Summit Gallery in Calgary, Canada (22 May - 20 June 2009).

I was also able to produce a Catalogue. I worked with writers Gail Jones (WA/NSW ) and Helen Idle (WA/UK) who contributed writing, graphic designer/artist Lauren Wilhelm and photographer Eva Fernandez. You can download Gail Jones and Helen Idle's text for the Floating World on the links below:
1. Gall Jones: The Erotics of Immersion - Responses to Floating Life (download)
2. Helen Idle: Of an Underwater Flâneur (download)

click here to download the complete Catalogue of the Floating World ( 8mb pdf)

The work for these exhibitions developed from a residency undertaken at the Banff Centre for the Arts in May/June 2007 and from studio work in Perth in 2008.  Although two very different landscapes inspire and inform my work – the lakes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, fed by glaciers and the coral reefs off the coast of Western Australia, warmed by the Leeuwin Current – my work is ultimately linked by concerns with the body in the landscape and ideas of sensuality, immersion and imagination. For instance, although abstract in nature, my paintings reference bodily experience.

The experience of 'moving over' a landscape, 'flying' or 'floating' over mountains or underwater reefs can also reference the body giving in to a movement that transports it, a bodily 'letting go'; Pleasure.

The title makes reference to Japanese printmaker Katsushika Hokusai's work and the idea of 'the Floating World' or Ukiyo which described the pleasure-seeking aspects of Edo, Japan. Hokusai was a master of Shunga, erotic prints describing a sophisticated world of urban pleasures also animated by the traditional Japanese love of nature.

My trip to Canada also allowed me visit London on the way home where I visited the British Museum to view the original Hokusai print of 'The fishermans wife' (lady & octopus).