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'A Drawing A Day' during the floods formed the foundations of the Flood Language series.

Flood Language Exhibitions

2017:   Flood Language: The Big and the Little, Gatakers Artspace, Maryborough, 27 February - 2 April 2017

2016:   Flood Language 2, Gayndah Regional Gallery, 6 May - 18 June 2016

2014:   Flood Language 2, Noosa Regional Gallery, 27 November - 25 January 2015  

2014:   Flood Language, Gatakers Artspace, Maryborough, 4 January - 2 February 2014

2013:   Flood Language, Queensland College of Art, Masters exhibition

2013:   All that Holds, POP Art Gallery, Queensland College of Art

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This body of work is in response to increased flooding activities due to extreme weather activities, especially in Queensland in recent years. These catastrophic conditions as part of the climate change phenomena force us to re-envision our relationship with nature.

My focus has been on the effects on the Mary River, in particular the Kidd Bridge in the middle of Gympie. 

I am fascinated with how the debris on the fences after the flood makes its own random language out of grasses, branches etc.  This ‘language’ was speaking to me like a form of graffiti, a direct and immediate form of communication. Local authorities and land owners appeared to be treating the debris like it was graffiti by ripping it off the fences as quickly as they could once the waters receded. There are probably more practical reasons, but I found the link interesting. Cartographers draw boundaries and lines on the landscape and landowners built the defining “walls” for my “graffiti” exhibiting defiance at this marking of boundaries. So could my ‘flood language’ be seen as a rebel trying to make a statement? 

Flood Spirit. Lomandra and wax. 2014

Flood Spirit. Ink and Mary River flood mud on paper, 77cm x 110cm.  Series 2013-2014

Talking to Mary 2.  Handmade fibres - lomandra, bladey grass and banana trunk, 80cm x 120cm. 2013. Photo: Tony Webdale