.

Intertidal Zone is an integral component of a series of intertidal-based works that culminated in the solo exhibition: Intertidal at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi during  May 2005.  

Intertidal Zone consists of a series of nine wooden 'sticks' of different lengths and widths that are coated with thick layers materials that I mostly found of beaches and then ground into pigments. These are  cuttlefish from Victoria and Tasmania, graphite from Tasmania), charcoal   from St Kilda Pier pavilion that burnt down in 2003 and washed to shore on the beach near where I was born, red, brown and yellow oxides from Tasmania and Victoria, crushed pumice from far north Queensland, bought green oxide, bought beeswax from Queensland and the final coating of bought eucalyptus oil from Tasmania.

These substances have been applied in graduated horizontal stripes according to a system of leaning whereby they appear to support a wall and cast shadows of intersection between each other against the space they inhabit. Each angle of 'lean' indicates the precise level at which the substances should change from one to the next- to be read from a distance as clean tidal marks across the eye-line of the installation. These marks are the tidal-line marks of the spiritual waters-edge-zone into which I am cast and willingly wade between solid shoreline and watery depths.

This simple resulting physical structure is a solid-form rendition of the sensation of my current existence. Intertidal Zone is about terrain and encounter.  I am present as this work and bound by a sense of wading, marked between land and sea.  The variety of angles and placement of the sticks along a gallery wall create a sense of the natural, perhaps a mangrove root system, or how rising tides ebb and flow regardless of the machinations of human time and place; set against the unnatural habitat of gallery and use of square (unnatural?) timber these timbers further present a sense of coded demarcation of space and intention.    

The space between is a constant theme in my work and life. I embrace my maternal Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, yet I must manage the everyday world of the insatiable western capitalist system that promises more and more whilst the intangible wealth of my original culture lures me ever back to the depths of knowledge, satisfaction and creation, that exist for me beyond the written and the spoken.  

Intertidal is more than a word, for me it is a sensation that articulates how I have been feeling since I left Australia in September 2001 for a year of residencies and since that date have undergone a non stop array of personal, employment and life changing experiences.

The  only constant in my life seems to be an endless sense of movement somewhat like the tides. This connection with the seas and salt waters gives me some courage and much comfort and I feel its pull wherever I am. This is likely why I am now living five house distances from the beach in Townsville.

I created my first significant Intertidal work in 2003 at ANU for the <ABSTRACTIONS> exhibition  http://www.anu.edu.au/culture/abstractions/artists/jg_1.htm because this sense of being pulled in different directions, living between and within varied states and places then conveyed and still best conveys the mysteries of place, seeming coincidence and the relief and release of locating story and medium in my everyday.

Some of the works in the exhibition Intertidal are celebratory and peaceful renditions of my inner state of being, in flux, between land and sea, not settled in new places, but testing waters and finding much. Other pieces that pair with these emotive painted renditions are ink jet print critical responses to the commodification of Indigenous art and process through the digitalisation of time, space and identities.

"Intertidal" is an exhibition, like those past, about me now navigating my reality. Consisting of reflections in to the deep past of my self, family, ancestors and the means of materialising form  there are also works about me now and questions about the expectations of the art market.