About me
Studies:
Diploma of Fine Art (Painting) at S.A. School of Art
1969 under Sydney Ball, Dora Chapman and Gordon Samstag
Diploma of Education Melbourne University Hawthorn 1972
Photography Studies College (PSC) Melbourne 1986
CELTA Holmes College Melbourne 2005
Travels:
Scandinavia, Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Born in
Crystal Brook, near the Flinders
Ranges in South Australia. Grew up in Adelaide
My preoccupation with the land as subject began in 1991 when I participated in an archaeological trip to the Middle East to document the now flooded region of northern Syria at Tel Ahmer. The archetypal deserts of Mesopotamia reminded me of me of the Ancient landscapes of Australia, and especially the deserts surrounding the River Murray at Mildura in Northern Victoria where, in 1886, my Canadian great grandfather William Benjamin Chaffey and his brother George established irrigation settlements that changed that landscape forever.
In 1997, following several field trips to the Riverland, the Mallee and Lake Mungo I was invited to mount a solo show at the Mildura Regional Art Gallery during the Mildura Wentworth Arts Festival. The exhibition, Body of Water took the ground view. Even then however, the aerial view over that region had begun to embed itself in my practice. See Charting Inland Waters and In The Vein.
After further immersing myself in that landscape, my way of seeing and my methodology has changed, especially in response to the call in 1998 for artists to make works for Mildura Palimpsest, when I began the ‘Garden Story’ trilogy.
This project spanned three years in different locations around Mildura, and focuses on the notion of land as body and a repository for memory, whilst observing the impact of agricultural practices on fragile landscapes.
Each of these pieces had a special significance for me: each comprised both a gallery and an outdoor installation. (see Mildura Palimpsest I – II, III and IV).
The exhibitions, Topographia and The Distal Zone, examine more closely recent developments in the story of modern agribusiness. Whilst also paying homage to the aesthetics of industry and the abstracted landscape, some of the imprinted painting methodology of the ‘60s have emerged to serve the process of speaking about land as metaphor.
ABC Radio National:
from 1997 to 2009
Interview on ABC Radio National 'Topographia' April 2009
Part 1
Part 2
www.abc.net.au/rn/sunmorn/maker
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/artstalk/stories/s293837.htm
Hearing
Your Place - Acoustic ecology:
Australian Sound Design Project - Hearing Place
http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/web/biogs/P000367b.htm
http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/site/news.htm
Chaffey family
history:
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Cabin/1066/127famous_chaffees.html
http://www.chaffey.org/community/ontario/museum/ontario_museum_chaffey_exhibit_150_years.html
Garden Story
1 –2 Essay NB: Rio Vista
http://www.welland.library.on.ca/digital/LACAC/Chaffey.htm
Mildura Arts
Centre:
http://www.milduraartscentre.com.au
Chaffey Graves
and Commemorative Garden Project:
http://www.mildura.vic.gov.au/page/page.asp?page_id=1056
http://www.mrcc.vic.gov.au/Page/page.asp?page_Id=1440&h=0
Mildura Wentworth
Arts Festival:
http://www.mwaf.org.au/events/in-the-vein.html
Wish you
were here - Penrith Artist Led Projects (Wales):
www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/exh/ART21256.html
Just Add
Water: Australian National Archives Canberra:
Touring nationally 2005-2008
http://www.naa.gov.au/exhibitions/just_add_water/jaw.html
www.naa.gov.au/Publications/memento/pdf/memento29.pdf
“8 x 8” Returning to Pittspace, Melbourne August 8th 2008
8by8.net
Website in transition