“Sydney Park is now beautifully landscaped and much-loved by locals. It is known for its dog walkers and bird-filled wetlands, dance parties and children’s playgrounds, sporting teams and rough sleepers. But of course there is history here. The park sits on top of millennia of changing conditions as a hunting and fishing ground. In early colonial days it was granted by the government to a convict business woman. The land provided fertile ground for gardens and orchards and then for decades was deeply excavated, with quarries, brickworks, factories and a municipal tip. 

 

“Currently the State Government is shaving off edges and corners of Sydney Park for the WestConnex motorway. But passionate defenders of the park have occupied a protest camp since September 2016, fighting against the toll road and its destruction of trees, habitat and community. 

 

“My Sydney Park paintings attempt to connect intuitively with the varied, edgy and mostly unknown stories of this place.

 

“Printmaking, drawing and collage techniques in conjunction with painting have helped me to play with pattern, colour, texture and layering to deepen the element of narrative suggestion in the images without forgoing the pleasures of accident and experimentation.”

 

Net proceeds from painting sales were donated to the Environmental Defenders Office NSW.