Based in Melbourne, Australia, I studied at art schools in Sydney and Auckland, New Zealand. I have travelled extensively – visiting Europe, the US, and many Asian countries. I lived in Tokyo for almost 3 years from 1992, where I studied Ikebana at the avant-garde Sogetsu school. The principles of design, and discipline with a particular focus on craft continue to inform my art practice today.
Committed to extensive research of specific sites, I create work that poetically interprets contextual and conceptual complexity. Creating works that provoke questions, I utilize elements of both 2 and 3 D, macro and micro space, object and shadow. Some of my work can take years to complete. and while not deliberate, it could be seen as a reaction to the digital age I am making it in. My work often makes unanticipated but distinct connections between disparate stimuli and forms of information, creating highly refined, hand-crafted works that are evidence of particular social, cultural and artistic links.
In 2014 I undertook a residency at Youkobo Artspace in Tokyo, in 2016 was shortlisted in the Basil Sellers Art Prize at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, and earlier this year, I had a solo Exhibition at CRAFTVictoria.
Image:
meiji-jingumae 2009 – 2017 detail
handknitted wool, pins on stretched canvas
2150 x 2030 cm
photo : Peter Atkins