I am not painting a place, but an experience. In the wind, light and distance I search for something elusive-atmospheric. Painting is how I hold that fleeting moment of being alive.

Painting the sky has always felt inevitable to me.

I grew up in the Wimmera plains where the horizon was endless and the weather arrived like theatre.

Those early moments – lying in paddocks watching storms gather – become the quiet foundation of a lifelong fascination with light, atmosphere and movement.

Today I paint those large atmospheric skies in oil, working intuitively with my bare hands – allowing the sky to evolve on a whim, mirroring the shifting energy of weather itself.

The process is physical, immediate and responsive.

For me, the sky is never just a backdrop. It holds emotion, memory and possibility. A gathering storm can carry tension and anticipation; a clearing horizon can offer breath and renewal. In this way the landscape becomes a reflection of our inner weather.

I am drawn to the fleeting qualities of light and movement, influenced greatly by my favourite painter, Spaniard, Joaquin Sorolla, who chased the brilliance of the mediterranean sun, and breathtakingly captured it on water and skin.

J.M.W. Turner is of course another great influence on my work, he who painted atmosphere itself!! He painted movement, weather, light and emotional force. The sublime power of nature.

I would like to think that my atmospheric skies echo the Romantic tradition of these ledgendary masters.

My focus is the vast Australian sky – its storms, light, air, mist and energy.

The emotional language of weather.

Through paint I try to hold these passing moments of light and weather long enough for us to step into them, to feel their energy, and perhaps to recognise something of ourselves within them.