Correspondence
2001
Installation at Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart, Australia. 2001.
Cabinet displayed with digital ink transfer prints on polyester film. Handmade cabinet of celery-top pine, Tasmanian blackwood, glass and brass, containing pen and ink illustrations on polyester film, found shells, hand-tied fishing flies and lead sinkers.
Correspondence was inspired (in part) by the tradition, typical of all European colonies, in which local (expatriate) artisans would construct exemplary pieces of cabinetwork for display back in the European capitals to demonstrate both the technical competence and (more importantly) the extraordinary natural resources of the colonies. These pieces followed in the tradition of the 17th-century Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, but to me they are more emotionally loaded - bittersweet nostalgia mixed with an emerging colonial sense of place and pride.