The green gold grassy hills

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Indelible ink

FictionSelected for Best Australian Stories 2006SHE WAS FIFTY-NINE, rich, divorced for a year, and out alone on a Saturday night. She told the taxi...

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FictionThe name, when it came, sounded as if it had been uttered by somebody else. The man’s look shifted from one of mild affection to puzzlement. ‘Excuse me?’ He was still smiling, but it was a different kind of grin – the type of smile people offer a stranger who begs them for spare change.

Lines of beauty

In ConversationI studied printmaking because in the mid-’90s there wasn’t so much exciting painting happening in QCA studios, but also because I really wanted to learn new processes for my undergrad and, like most artists, I’d always painted. Painting had fallen out of fashion, and everyone was making installation, then photography and film – the new digital world reigned supreme for a decade. Now it’s all about painting.

The sentimentalist

In ConversationI’ve positioned myself as somebody who’s constantly going through the trash of yesteryear with my raccoon paws and saying, ‘Wasn’t it grand?’ I think it’s more that I’m drawn to things I misunderstood rather than things that are just old, and I’m also interested in diagnosing the culture through what we loved, what we made and what we despised. It’s becoming much more clear to me the older I get.