Intertidal, 2003
Canberra earth, canberra grass juice, Hyde Park Sydney ochre,
St Kilda burnt pier charcoal, ground cuttlefish bone, sea lettuce on board
4 x 6 ft
collection of Australian National University, Canberra

I

Intertidal, 2003 is a large painting on board of pigments derived from the sea and earth in the weeks and hours prior to its making.  There is an element of the uncanny in this work. The name Intertidal came to me out of the ether - as with the other titles and their approximate semi-planned visual outcomes.   

I provided dimensions to Nigel Lendon of the acrylic sized board required by me to be made at ANU upon which I would apply the various mediums, half of which I would bring with me. Intertidal is a painting reflecting my current state of flux, movement and in-between-ness.  The title expresses my being at this time. Neither earth nor water bound.  

When I arrived in Canberra to continue creating the works (twining, crushing cuttlefish and charcoal) and commence installing them I enquired about Howard Morphy and was told that he was away up at Blue Mud Bay  in Arnhem Land working on Intertidal zones with local owners of the country. I felt a little faint upon hearing this news !  The work Intertidal is a series of  wide parallel linear striations formed by the horizontal application across the surface of the materials Canberra earth, Canberra grass juice, Hyde Park Sydney ochre, St Kilda pier sea washed charcoal, ground cuttlefish bone and sea lettuce.

These mediums provide a range of colours and textures including grass green, red ochre, yellow ochre, creamy white ground cuttlefish bone and charcoal black. The work is also physically representative of a continuing state of flux in that the bright green [now dried] grass juice has metamorphosed into a tan colour due to oxidisation and this sense of flux parallels the reason that the work was made - to represent my own mobility and sense of change at this stage of my life.

I worked rapidly with these mediums and found myself enjoying the physicality of creating and installing these works in the ANU Drill Hall gallery space amidst the increasingly fervent and demonstrative activities of myself, other artists, curators working steadily on their works.