These works are the result of genuine collaboration with the landscape. They are literally constructed from light, earth and flesh. I love this technique of lumachrome glass printing for its ability to make dead animals and birds seem alive again. It is light alone that manifests these colours and shapes- not paint or anything that can be completely controlled.

I have largely invented this process, which involves arranging blood, clay, sticks, leaves, seeds, resin, ochres, etc., with road-killed animals or birds, on light-sensitised paper. Exposed 24 to 36 hours, while the sun arches east to west, fibre papers produce surprising arrays of colour. Over this I layer cliche-verre plates coated with resists of wax or paint, scratched with wire to create lines.

Sometimes I run electric currents over these plates to produce crystals in the ochre. For finer detail, I use chemigram variants, painting compounds like selenium or copper chloride directly onto feathers, scales or fur. I have called this Lumachrome glass printing because light produces colours in the emulsion (Lumachrome) and I use layered glass plates.

My process is different, adaptive, for each print. If an animal is still bleeding, I paint its blood into the image during exposure. Ochres, seeds, sticks, and other materials, are sourced where the animal or bird was found. If maggots and flies appear, their tracks are incorporated into the work. When the print is complete, the creatures are respectfully buried.

You can find 2018 prints here, 2019 prints here and 2020 prints here. 

Comets in the snow gums and alpine flowers, the night Orion and Estelle crossed the federal highway, falling in traffic, in the hymns of winter nightjars, and rose again covered in stars.

Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-verre, Chemigram, drawing. Roadkilled dingo pups with wildflowers, seeds, resin, wax, gold chloride, turmeric, rodinal and selenium toner, on fibre paper. Exposed 42 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 78cm x 53.5cm (editions of 10)

---

Her wing caught on a barbed wire fence, night becoming day and the bone pierced. Ruth slips off her owl body, exploding into the sky over Lake Burley Griffin, to become a sun.

Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-Verre, Chemigram and drawing. Trapped deceased Eastern Barn Owl, seeds, feather-top grass, turmeric, coffee, liquid paper, sulphuric acid and silver chlorides, exposed 40 hours with electric current, in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 78cm x 57cm (editions of 10)

---

Robyn, still-born among wildflowers and flint, and the Sun will return her to the sky, like a dazzling, burning bird.

Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-verre, Chemigram and drawing. Stillborn calf, flowers, flint, chalk, coloured inks, vegemite and bleach, on fibre paper. Exposed 52 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 79cm x 50cm (editions of 10)

---

Martin dreams a barn owl into being, over Mt Jillamatong, on a night of flying saucers and stars.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram, cliche-verre and drawing. Road-killed Eastern Barn Owl, sand, graphite, wax and ink on fibre paper. Exposed 32 hours in a geodesic dome.  

Editioned prints, 72.5cm x 60cm (editions of 10)

---

In Kowen forest, the trees speak in strange growling tongues, their sap pumping like blood– stars over them, birdsong all around them. When Alexandra fell, leaving her body among their roots, they lifted her back into the sky with their breath.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram, painting. Fallen spinebill, twigs, leaves, grass, sand, vegemite, turmeric, crayons, wax and red lipstick, on fibre paper. Exposed 31 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 35cm x 40cm (editions of 10)

---

Some spirits remain in this world only a moment– just to feel breath on their lips, a mother’s warmth, to smell wildflowers in the grass- and then they go, slipping back into the before-country. Lucy, dropping her body in the field, lifts into a Braidwood night and is greeted by insects.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram. Stillborn calf and bugs on fibre paper, with household chemicals, mineral salts and mixed seeds. Exposed 48 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 70cm x 50cm (editions of 10)

---

She remembered running, baby in pouch, the burrow nearly visible, birds lifting from the watertank at the first rifle’s crack– so cold in the long grass, day drops night, and the joey stills. In the winter sky over Braidwood, Enid finds her baby again, as a spark in starfields.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram and drawing. Road-kiLumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram and drawing. Shot wombat mother and her frozen joey. Exposed 49 hours, with salt, sand, ochres, gold chloride, white-out and clay, on fibre paper in a geodesic dome.lled sparrow, copper chlorides, salt, chalk, ballbearings and selenium on fibre paper with resists. Exposed 32 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 70cm x 54cm (editions of 10)

---

Jonah, made enormous by night, crosses the Southern Ocean inside a thunderhead.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche verse, chemigram. Roadkilled duck with household chemicals, photochemistry, crayons and sand on fibre paper. Exposed 42 hours in geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 70cm x 41cm (editions of 10)

---

When Andrew’s dawn chorus fell silent, the sun lifted him to her gigantic burning breast, like a love song.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram and drawing. Road-killed sparrow, copper chlorides, salt, chalk, ballbearings and selenium on fibre paper with resists. Exposed 32 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 70cm x 48cm (editions of 10)

---

Fred transforming from zebra finch to lightning, in winter stars, over North Black Range.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram & resists. Zebra Finch, carried 4000km in the back of Pete’s ute from the central desert, with table salt, borax, acids, crayon and electric current. Exposed 21 hours in a geodesic dome. 

Editioned prints, 50cm x 47cm (editions of 10)

---

‘Vincent rises in the stratosphere, over night-cities, on a line of zodiacal light – last astronaut of the Rex Hares.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram and drawing. Road-killed Rex Hare, gold chloride, sand, crayon, diluted vegemite and felt on fibre paper. Exposed twice over 38 hours in a geodesic dome, with electric current. 

Editioned prints, 70cm x 51.5cm (editions of 10)

---

‘Phantasmagoria– sometimes, when the world is darkest, help comes. (for my friends)

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre (drawing on glass) and chemigram. Insects, sticks and grass, copper chloride and electricity on fibre paper. Exposed 46 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 65cm x 65cm (editions of 10)

---

‘Alberto The Great’, astounding an audience of parrots and crows, spinning from a powerline with one foot – misjudged, and fell in a shower of sparks. Floating overhead, he watched his own body lying on the street, the crows freaking, cockatoos crowding round in shock and sadness – and Phil, who’d seen the whole thing from his window, running out of the house and cradling him in human arms. Not every stunt bird gets that kind of applause.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram, electroplate. Electrocuted cockatoo on fibre paper with Selenium and household chemicals. 36 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 70cm x 51cm (editions of 10)

---

On the curve of a desert track, a mMorgana lifting above the coop, the chicken yard and house, hears music through an open window – ballets by Stravinsky or Rimsky-Korsakov – and begins to pirouette, weightlessly, in space.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram. Heart-failed Hen and photochemistry on fibre paper, exposed 42 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 70cm x 54cm (editions of 10)

---

On the curve of a desert track, a motorcycle hums in sand, wheels spinning, stars lifting from yinirnti and bloodwood trees. And Ned is flying through the night’s vast, along the sky-roads of sparrowhawks.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram, drawing. Fallen Collared Sparrowhawk, acacia twigs and branches, sand, seeds, wax, graphite and metal salts on fibre paper. Exposed 38 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 70cm x 58cm (editions of 10)

---

Juliette, who had once been a gosling, explodes in stars over Braidwood, on her way to becoming a sun.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram. Stillborn gosling, blood and household chemicals on fibre paper. 14 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 70cm x 70cm (editions of 10)

---

Fred climbs shifting planes of wind, over Mount Killawarra, in the body of an iridescent night parrot.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram, drawing. Smoke-killed parrot with grass-tree resin, clay, insect legs and crayon, on fibre paper. Exposed 22 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 70cm x 41cm (editions of 10)

---

Night lizards, motionless above the Northern Tanami– stars falling around them, the warm air lifting from ochre and Sturt’s desert rose. This is where my heart lives.

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verre, chemigram, chemistry painting. Two fallen blue-tongued lizards, sand, crayon, wax, vegemite and resin on fibre paper. Exposed 29 hours in a geodesic dome.

Editioned prints, 70cm x 60cm (editions of 10)

---