I know it sounds dramatic but I used to not take photos and destroy my paintings soon after making them.

So this is one of the few surviving paintings from my Australian art school days, painted in my final year.  At the time I liked the ideas about the ephemeral in art and was into performance and installation art.

It wasn’t until I wound up in Greece far away from the influence of the Australian art school philosophy that I realised ‘PAINTING WAS’NT DEAD’ after all.

This is a large painting of a miniature cactus plant that my mum had around the house at the time. My intention was to paint it in a realistic style but ended up abstracting and simplifying some of its features.

The texture of the paint was applied thickly in some areas. There is a Pop Art element to this work because I turned a miniature, kitsch object into a gigantic scale.