When choosing a subject, a gumtree could be perceived as overdone, contrived or simply too literal when in relation to the Park Lands or even Australian landscape painting as a whole.

But I can't help but be inspired by the mundane intimacy or universality of this iconography within my work. The concept that my painted observation from life, is a recording in time that honours a gumtree that has been there well beyond my lifetime and has seen many narratives of the world change around it, inspires me.

I am also inspired by the unassuming graceful presence a gum has as the light changes so it glows and how we feel when we observe this change in light.

I’m inspired by the rhythms of life that exist within the Park Lands gums and how we move through this space on Kaurna Land. And lastly I'm inspired by painting, by painting what I see and what I feel from life.

Oil on marine plywood 30 × 35 cm