Rural Utopias 24 November 2023 – 18 February 2024 The Art Gallery of Western Australia

I’ve met your barrel-chested creatures in the fields and witnessed a deer transform as we sang amidst ankle cutting stubble. Emus sprinted across plains, and a powerful poet reminded me that a campfire was all one needed. We spent nine days sewing and laughing as ‘90s pop songs play­ed through our 5,000 kilometres of seed stitching.

Your charm is in simple gestures — smiles, greet­ings, and stray farm dogs. Light softens your terrain, making even impo­sing machinery appear gentle. I couldn’t help but think of the film Gladia­tor and its famous opening grain scene, where pre-violence brings profound stillness.

The water monsters, the Axolotls at the pub, beckon like sirens, reminding me of the possi­bi­li­ties of regeneration even in a muddy tank. In your presence, the anxiety of ambition and agri-art’s careerism waned. I didn’t want to subject you to tokenism or similar contrivances, nor did I aim to romanticise or infantilise. Instead, your vocal to­tems, the wildflowers in the gaps, were my focus.