My creative approach is the product of many years of making mistakes. Every misstep is a learning opportunity. I live by Claude Monet’s advice to artists to “paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly...” The spontaneous mixing of pigments directly onto the canvas is an artistic adventure and the Japanese have a saying which distils the essence of what I seek to show in my work: Shin no utsukushi-sa wa kekkan no naka ni aru – True Beauty is in the Flawed. During extensive travels across Western Australia, and the remote Kimberleys in particular, I have been inspired by the dramatic juxtapositions of climate and landscape; the baking temperatures and soaking rains, the ancient red earth and the life-giving springs of crystal clear water. The sheer audacity of nature in producing wonders of environmental engineering is intriguing, a force which invites us to look beyond the obvious and explore the abstract. I have found that only when we slow down and allow ourselves to examine our surroundings, to be in the landscape, can we begin to appreciate the unique beauty I strive to convey.