My new show, Material Memory, presents a collection of artworks I’ve assembled from found objects and reclaimed materials — old leather baseball gloves, saddles, caravan annex canvas, plastic and ceramic objects, brass bowls, and bright acrylic. I love taking everyday objects and transforming them into contemporary compositions that still carry the memory of their past lives.
My process always starts with collecting. I search tip shops, op shops, kerbside piles, and recycling centres across the Northern Rivers and sometimes further afield. I’m drawn to pieces that show they’ve been used — scuffs, stitching, folds, patina — those little details that speak of time, purpose, and human hands.
Material Memory
15 August – 30 November 2025
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre, Murwillumbah NSW
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RED SADDLE 01, 2025.
Once I’ve found something that catches my eye, I take it apart and clean it. I let the structure, craftsmanship, and quirks of each piece guide what happens next. Through rearranging, joining, and refining, I build new forms that honour the original materials while giving them a fresh context. My background in interior design and visual merchandising probably explains my love of proportion and finish, but there’s also an instinctive, hands-on side to my work — an eye that’s tuned to line, rhythm, and balance.
Some materials in this show are deeply personal. The fluorescent acrylic reminds me of my childhood, when I’d fold and launch simple sheets into the air. The canvas annex fabric, with its rough strength and familiar smell, takes me straight back to camping holidays — before phones, social media, and constant digital noise. I’ve kept the seams and eyelets visible, as both function and feature, because they’re part of its story.
But Material Memory isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about transformation. By working with what’s been overlooked or discarded, I’m creating something new that still speaks to where it came from. These works look forward as much as they look back, giving familiar materials a new voice within contemporary art.
I hope Material Memory invites you to pause, to look again, and to consider the stories materials can hold — how memory lives not only in objects, but in the way we choose to see and shape them.
Material Memory
15 August – 30 November 2025
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre, Murwillumbah NSW