*^ This piece was selected as a finalist in the Lethbridge $10,000 small scale art prize 2018 ^* I have no idea who won

Its a study for a large diptych I'm working on, just trying things out

Comprising three distinct sections from Conrad Martens' "View from Craig End" 1840, (see below) the landscape is spread across the array, with defined but staggered horizon lines - clearly demarked earth and sky sections - on each panel. The intent is to read this as a continuum, without being a literal singular landscape. These are not highly detailed works but 'indications of landscape'

This is the work of Conrad Martens. His work is like rapture, but quiet. I latched onto this guy so long ago that I feel I own him now, he's my personal property, much like the way that reading the book before seeing the movie makes a person feel ownership of the whole story. The Mosman Art Gallery, whom own this painting, describe it as "fluid picturesque renderings of sea and shore and the atmospheric affects of light".  Conrad Martens. He may not be be everyone's cup of tea but he's mine.

The batik patterning is laid over the view like a cloth of gold, tattooed onto, permanently branded. My South East Asian childhood, my Father's suicide, our struggle fitting into this entirely unknown country where everyone but us knew the rules. And we knew no one. I certainly couldn't connect the dots & that remains true today. How to make sense of it all? I think of landscapes as experiences, feeling God is in every particle. Thats where I find my connection, when the layers of imagery and narrative hum and make beauty. God is in every particle.