Sometimes, rarely, my day job in policy and my art career converge. Nail Aykan became my subject for my second entry into Australia's Archibald Prize 2019, as I painted WA politican John Hyde MP back in 2010. Just sent it off to the courier. Exhausting but good.  
Until recently, Nail ...Read more>

If you remain unmoved by the first half and havent laughed by the second half - you're offically dead. Making music is a second-rate description for this wonderful performance. Music is integral to my painting. I can't even begin to make a mark without finding just the right music which ...Read more>

Wonderful to be shortlisted for the  Collie Art Prize in WA. The theme of identity has inspired the 40 finalists. I will be attending the opening with friends and enjoying being back in regional WA and all its beauty and character.  The exhibition is on show 10am-4pm ...Read more>

This  series of 6 small paintings are stories about fashion, suicide vests and social media and was inspired by consultations with multicultural youth and media reports while working as a policy officer for the peak ethnic community organisation in Australia.
It pays homage to 60s and 70s  haute ...Read more>

Here are two studies I've been doing over the last 2 years for my new series Strange Fruit.


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This article was first published in the  London Progressive Journal , 5 July 2015  ...Read more>

My framer David talked me out of a grand, wide ornate frame and selected this wide, close to the edge frame which works brilliantly on both the small and large paintings, and really ties them all together.  Although they are all or sale prior to exhibition, I felt that having ...Read more>

  A print of my painting A Parable of A Physicist And Twin Torsos, with text from myself and Professor Caslav Brukner of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna, will be included in the poster session of a new workshop on quantum biology ...Read more>

The sub-text question in this painting is: "Does Petraeus dream of electric sheep?". But for every intelligent being, it is still, "What is this thing called love?"  
The two recognizable figures are David H Petraeus and Jennifer Miro (of The Nuns). Obviously the head of the CIA doesn't collaborate in artistic explorations ...Read more>

The painting I am working on is one of those 'gateway' images that set a tone for the following paintings. I am immersed in an usual combination of music to get into it. Combining 70s punks and disco in the laboratory ...Read more>

The Sun, the helios , its affect on Earth is a particular area of study called heliophysics . And NASA have quite a bit of this research on it's education websites. Solar flares have become an area of my interest lately. It is ...Read more>

I often use the term 'gateway image"to describe a painting which is a bridge between one series and the next. Most of the time it is not that clean, because you travel a road and the landscape changes along the way.  So there are not really any breaks ...Read more>

These photographs were taken in the last 3 days when I travelled with a friend to Albany in Western Australia's South West region. This particular muddy creek held a strange fascination as it seemed to reflect a world within a world. I have added them to my wall of ...Read more>

I realised that this painting has not been posted in my Visual Diary so here it is. It is a small canvas (20x20cm) called Kandahar Kandy , and is a companion piece to Nothing Like A Drone (both Feb 2011 completed). I merged a Hollywood character ...Read more>

“A Jewish visionary will see visions of the seven heavens because his religious imagination is stocked with these particular symbols. Buddhists see various images of Buddha and Bodhisattvas; Christians visualise the Virgin Mary. It is a mistake for the visionary to see ...Read more>

In 1966, about 9 months before I entered the world , TIME magazine ran a cover story "Is God Dead?". It's still the question. By today's standards it seems naïve, given the pluralism of gods and beliefs. But in the ...Read more>

I've updated this entry because people thought I was dumping the broader themes (I'm not) but some paintings are smaller chapters. Only during an exhibition do I really understand how it fits in. This one is less Judy and more dark matter, God and Pentagon's black budget. It's a ...Read more>

The next few months the work is in transition as I start a new series. It's going to be really vague and really weired (what's new you say). The working title is Scribes of Divinity.

Here is one of the new canvases. In this image (which ...Read more>

This is a repost  of this work as I completed the paintings. Small canvases (5x). They developed when I first started reading the chansons de geste translations by Michael Newth in Sydney. He has since become a good friend and I am grateful for his inspired ...Read more>

On the one hand I embrace my research on technology, but at the same time, I seem stubbornly out of time. I keep painting. I keep reading that "death of painting" was all a big mistake, and suddenly there are a ton of editorials embracing paint. While I am ...Read more>

In this surreal landscape, Department of Defence (DOD) Dragonfly robots both record and control Julian Assange, our 19th century marionette-Crusader, holding his shield of digital secrets as the world redefines war.
If the battle today is about moderates and extremists, does anyone of us dare to admit where we stand? ...Read more>

This painting is now in week 8 of not getting past this point. It's ok, in the meantime I did a small one, Kandahar Kandy , and started some notes on a possible illustration project for a book on chanson des geste. But any ...Read more>

I've been finishing off the cake quartet. Where this strange analogy of the wedding cake comes into it, I have to admit to some inspired, but ultimately mysterious, source. I like that I don't always know what's happening on my canvases. I mean sure, I follow a ...Read more>

I'm cleaning out the many boxes and packages that I shove under the bed, behind closets etc since I had to move studios recently. Always messy trying to sort out what to keep. In the process I found heaps of sketches and studies for paintings completed from the mid ...Read more>

  The last 2 months I had a very interesting experience working with a politician in Western Australia, MLA John Hyde, the opposition minister for Arts and Heritage and Multiculturalism in Western Australia. In a series of meetings, I asked him questions about his past life before politics (he used ...Read more>

"Oh Barack, Don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." Chick Flick: Acrylic, screenprint on 16 x 20" canvas.
This is a continuation of my using Broadway and Hollywood metaphors, in examining the US/Israeli/Palestinian relationships. 'Chick Flick' explores ...Read more>

Completed painting "Angels and Pears" [pictured]

Acrylic paint, screenprint and gold leaf on canvas. Several layers of print here. The leaf is applied on the pears and crosses.

It's part of a contemplation on the role of Spirit in the peace process that came out of several sketches I ...Read more>

These are 3 small canvases (10x10)acrylic paint, screenprint and 22k gold leaf. Not sure if they will fit together as one triptych or remain 3 separate paintings. The working title is "State of the Union".  It's looking at the legitimacy of ideas, especially how we use religious ideas to ...Read more>

A lot of the issues which have arisen since Obama's Egyptian speech reminded me of the prophetic silence of the 'Sibyl of Cumae' (Roman prophesies, Homeric stories, Virgil's Aeneid VI etc). It is exploring the role of prophesy in modern political life.

Lately I have been thinking about ...Read more>

I have just scanned and uploaded the first 3 completed paintings from my new series exploring the new US administration. I am now researching and doing sketches for some smaller canvases which look at the Israel/Palestine situation, and as you can imagine they are taking some time. The new ...Read more>

This is the updated image for the review in Brontë Blog for a painting which got into the head of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and discovered some quantum shenanigans going on. Thanks guys. And this is also the Kate Bush Song that played up in the ...Read more>

 
This is my 16 canvas (20x20cm each) painting of Diana's alternative realities. called Schrodinger's Requiem. In this narrative, Diana lives, as per the many worlds theory of quantum physics. I did sell this painting, and wish I could have kept it, ...Read more>

Friday, February 2
WORK IN PROGRESS (quantum art series)

In my 2006 exhibition Sedition and Other Bedtime Stories I began looking at the quantum world when I was seeking new ways of seeing old problems. This made me aware of the way that stories influence our knowledge. As I ...Read more>