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.

The insects are leaving us

Lumachrome, cliche-verse, chemigram, collage, drawing. Autumn insects, Vegemite, paint, crayon, seeds, sticks, wax on fibre paper. Multiple exposures over 36 hours.

(editions of 5)

At summer’s end, night choirs of insects serenade the fire-blackened trees. (after Rubens)

Lumachrome, chemigram, drawing. Collected insects and arachnids with charcoal from the fireground, crayon, paint, graphite, dirt, sticks, miscellaneous household chemicals, on fibre paper. Exposed twice under perspex.

(editions of 5)

The sky reddens, but Margo will not leave. She sings her special microbat songs of transformation to the snow gums. And the firestorm will sweep them all away. Only love matters, she tells them. All the rest is ash.

Lumachrome Glass Print, Cliche-verre, Chemigram, Drawing. Smoke-exhausted Gould’s Wattled Bat, crayon, blood, copper chloride, Vegemite and graphite on fibre paper. Exposed 26 hours in firelight, under perspex.

(editions of 5)

Lionel, wearing the skin of a rex hare, goes back to his Country beyond the clouds. Brother poet, activist, healing man. You broke all our hearts, in the end. (For Lionel Fogarty)

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram, drawing. Heat-killed wild hare, wax, chalk, graphite, copper chloride on fibre paper. Exposed 26 hours under perspex.

(editions of 5)

She wanted them to save themselves, to choose love over violence, to look to higher beings, like fish and ants and trees, and learn how to become worthy of the intelligent speaking land. She pleaded with them again and again, with nobody listening, until her heart was in pieces, until her crested pigeon body was bone tired, and she asked the sun to take her. Ruth, last of the bird avatars. Please. We have to change.

Lumachrome glass print, chemigram, drawing. Heat-exhausted crested pigeon, sand, seeds, Vegemite, paint, on fibre paper. Exposed 19 hours under perspex.

(editions of 5)

Off the South coast, where Christmas tourist traffic threads the Kings Highway, and stops for no reason, not for bird or fallen roo—the ocean gathers up Brendan, at the edge of water, remakes his shattered hind leg and broken tail, his heart, the shock of it all, his mother lost in night scrub and the wall of lights that bore down. And the morning will lift him up like mountains

Lumachrome Glass Print, Chemigram, Drawing. Roadkilled Eastern Grey Joey, sand, seeds, Vegemite, charcoal, graphite, colour pencils, darkroom chemistry and ink on fire paper. Exposed 36 hours in a perspex box, hand annotated under red light, re-exposed 10 hours

Editioned prints, 57cm x 75cm (editions of 10)

Elizabeth, passing so briefly through this world, becomes a light-emitting nova among the star fields, over Black Mountain

Lumachrome glass print, cliche-verse, chemigram, drawing. Road-killed newborn wombat, sand, selenium, wax, vegemite, chalk and graphite. Exposed 56 hours under perspex

Editioned prints, 50cm x 75cm (editions of 10)