Possum Delight (2017)

HD video, looped, 3:32mins, stereo sound design by Jamie Coghill, found objects, plasma screen, mixed media (HxWxD).                  
​ image credit: Deborah White       

 Possum Delight takes the form of a shrine to honour the possums that share my urban space. It gives cause to reflect on native animals, typically regarded as pests that cling to their habitat in the face of urban development. Surrendering to the notion of living harmoniously with the harmless animals, I have drawn inspiration from animism that reveres the spiritual essence of animals and regards their habitat as precious. The humour of the ritualized performance, highlights the eccentric position of humans in the natural world. The performance-as-possum serves to negate the assumption that holds humans in a superior, privileged position. Humans are not the owners of absolute knowledge and becoming-animal shows other ways of knowing beyond human language and logic.
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Possum Delight (2017) was selected as a finalist in the Darebin Art Prize (2017) held at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre. An earlier version, An Auspicious Place (2016), was shown at Gallery@BACC.

Ever-Renewing Delight (2014) 

HD video, multi-channel, looped, rear-projected into found objects, stereo sound design by Jimi Richardson, variable dimensions
       image credit: David Marks Photography

 The seductive power of ritual to create a euphoric state of mind has ignited a personal fascination in the timeless techniques of ecstasy used by mystics and shamans. Ecstasy is a primal emotion that promotes social bonding— creating a joyful feeling of intimacy with the universe. It is a respite from the isolating work-a-day world, transforming our thinking to dance with the improbable.

Ever-Renewing Delight (2014) and Ever-Renewing Delight II (2015) have been short-listed in the Linden Art Prize (2016) and The Blake Prize (2016), respectively. Ever-Renewing Delight (2014) was exhibited at the Bundoora Homestead (2016) and at Gaffa Gallery in Sydney (2018).

Ghosts of the Near Future (2011)

HD video, multi-channel, central video is 8:50mins,  5 videos rear-projected into found objects, looped, stereo sound design by Jimi Richardson
​image credit: Dean McCartney

The uncertainty of the future is forever haunting in these times of climate change.The ethereal beings that emerge in this video installation represent the imagined fears. These underwater ghosts, kept captive in a menagerie of the future, reflect the futility of containing and controlling the abounding anxieties. 

Ghosts of the Near Future (2011) was produced during the Billila Artist-in-Residence program of Bayside City Council. The image depicts the multi-projection installation at Linden Gallery. 

Floating with Sharks (2011)

HD digital video; 6:04 mins; looped, stereo sound design by Jimi Richardson

In these times of climate change, the waters are rising, people are moving and cultures are merging. The figurative combination of human and animal reflects the drowning of species and the unmooring of identity amid the converging shorelines. This work speculates on the transformative possibilities that may evolve. I reject the narrative of fear— a dystopia of marauding barbarians, lawless scavengers or catastrophic tidal wave so often depicted in sci-fi literature. I prefer to imagine a fanciful, watery world where there are shark whisperers, frolicking critters and other folk taking their fish out for a walk. What emerges is a fantasy of new harmonies; a whimsical playground reconstructed from the traces that remain. These are the survivors in a global scenario of transformation.

Floating with Sharks (2011) was exhibited at Queensland Centre of Photography (2011) and screened at Aust. International Experimental Film Festival (2011). It was also included in the group show Utopia du Jour at Manningham Art Gallery (2016) and screened at Brunswick Town Hall as part of Counihan Gallery’s Night Visions (2018). It will also be included in an upcoming event, 'Hot Reels', which is part of the Burrinja Climate Change Biennale (2023).

Click Fetish (2009)

HD video, looped, 7:00 mins, stereo sound design by Jimi Richardson

Our increasingly intimate relationship with technology continues to merge the real and the digital as we search for popularity on facebook, commodities on ebay and affection on RSVP.com. The coveted and fetishized computer gadgets extend us to a place where we google our desires and perform our fabricated private lives. Click Fetish expresses the insatiable manual pleasure of the mouse-driven search for novelty and fantasy. It represents a blurring of spaces where the undesired can augment their reality and where the mundane becomes titillation. Our seduction, however, into the utopia of harmless, anonymous fun comes unstuck and dulled by the inescapable abjection of reality.
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Click Fetish (2009) was shown at Trocadero Art Space (2009) and screened at MagMart@PAN (2010), Channels: Australian Video Art Festival (2013), Melbourne Now (2014) and shortlisted in Erotica: National Acquisitive Art Prize (2010).

Trixie Triksta (2006)

C-type prints, 32 x 32 inches

As a middle-aged woman who does not adhere to the traditional virgin-wife-mother trilogy, horror cinema is a perversely appealing inspiration as it typically plots the overthrow of normal social order. Playing with the horror of the feminine, Trixie Triksta mocks the irrational fear of the ageing female and the attempts to maintain a youthful and 'civilised' body.
 
Trixie Triksta (2006) was exhibited at Bus gallery in 2007.

Version Tour (2006)

SD video, looped, 4:35min, stereo sound design by Jimi Richardson

Rejecting meaningless and arbitrary definitions, this video explores identity as a matrix of updatable versions. Our adventurer embarks on an online voyage to reshape ideas of identity. But, beware the shonky tour operators and their backyard glitches. There’s no telling what will happen to our adventuresome gal.
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Version Tours (2006) was exhibited at Bus Gallery (2009) and screened at the Electrofringe Festival (2009) and the 6th Berlin International Directors Lounge (2010).

MudPies (2005)

C-type prints, 40 x 40cm

Inspired by childhood memories intertwined with dreams and fantasies, this work borrows an atmosphere from fairytales to explore the altered reality brought on by grief and offers a glimpse into a healing imaginary world.
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Mudpies (2005) was exhibited at Seventh Gallery in 2006. The image, Strength and Liberty (2005), won the Most Outstanding Visual Entry in the Victorian Cancer Council Art Prize in 2007 and was also shortlisted in the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award (2006).

Tom Goes Digital (2003)

C-type prints, 40 x 32 inches

Before the selfie, we were obsessed with watching each other. In the series, Tom Goes Digital, humour subverts the power of the scrutinzing gaze.
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Tom Goes Digital (2003) was shown at 69 Smith St in 2005. The image, Dinners Burnt and I'm Pissed, was a finalist in the She Art Prize (2004) and the image, Ones Down Twos Across, was a winner of the Linden Postcard Prize in 2004.