Native (2015) is the first of what will be a series of works I produce from my involvement in The Marathon Project: a three year process where a number of artists and a scientist are visiting and responding to a working farm and conservation property in the Northern Midlands of Tasmania. Getting to know this property and its owners, my interest in the impacts that humans have on a site, and the ways in which nature responds to interventions, have been strengthened. At Marathon I learnt of Black Cracking Clay, thus began my interest in using clay found on site as my medium.
Native employs the form of domestic crockery to represent human civility and presence. Fired to a very low temperature, the vessels were filled with liquid in the gallery, prompting the partial disintegration of the clay forms. The idea for this work came from conversations with the landowners about actions he had taken in the past to which nature had responded and attempted to reclaim. The accompanying image depicts the strange beauty of an area of Black Cracking Clay during a wet period: a sight which, in the dry, appears ominous by contrast.
