Calm to Chaos Project
Calm to Chaos emerged in the aftermath of a sudden natural disaster.
In December 2023 (Christmas), Tamborine Mountain was struck by a freak tornado that left the area without power and in a prolonged state of emergency. The work was made during this period, sitting without electricity, time stretched, and attention turned inward while trying to process what had just occurred.
The project consists of a series of small mixed-media works on watercolour paper. Working at an intimate scale allowed for immediacy and responsiveness. Materials were layered, disrupted, and revisited, mirroring the oscillation between stillness and instability present in the days following the event.
Rather than illustrating the disaster directly, the works capture the psychological residue, shifts in rhythm, uncertainty, and moments of quiet observation punctuated by rupture. Gesture, mark-making, and surface become a way of holding experience when language feels insufficient.
Calm to Chaos sits within the broader practice as a time-bound response: a contained period where making functioned as both processing and grounding, allowing movement through uncertainty without the pressure of resolution.
“Into the Chaos” was entered into the Brunswick Street Gallery’s Small Works Art Prize in 2024.
This project holds particular significance in its details. Working in mixed media allowed thoughts and feelings to be layered into the surface — often subtly, sometimes in tension with one another. Texture and mark-making became a way of recording experience beyond the visible composition.
These closeups reveal the quieter moments within the work: traces of decision, hesitation, and return. The surfaces carry their own rhythm, where meaning gathers through repetition and restraint rather than singular gestures.
