I reconstruct and revise images from outmoded illustrated dictionaries, children's encyclopaedias, travel souvenirs, and the imperialist world of art history. My work fixates on minor characters such as drapery and cherubs, obsesses over the ubiquitous nude, and laments lost intimacies with the natural world. Animal domestication and predation, weather and natural disaster are recurring themes. I like a visual pun and a swarm. Repetition, excess and redundancy are built into mass media and the printed page, and I aim to push these qualities to new ends.

 

My practice crosses derided forms of craft such as decoupage with political argumentation and, in a sense, continues my past academic research in interspecies relations, feminism, and the spaces of science. I was trained in drawing and painting at a selective visual arts high school in Western Australia and, again, in my architectural education. These skills continue to be relevant for my practice today, enabling me to establish a dialogue between mark making and the found image.

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I hold Bachelor and Master of Architecture qualifications from the University of Western Australia, a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Murdoch University, and a doctorate in comparative literature and visual arts from Monash University.

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I am Emeritus Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Queensland where I was Dean and Head of School, before relocating in 2021 to Upper Coopers Creek in Bundjalong country, at the margins of the Byron Hinterland. I also design buildings and interiors with my partner in Possible Studio.