Tarmac
2023, Aeroplanes: coloured pencil, pastel pencil, soft pastel and watercolour on synthetic silk fabric, sewn onto cane that is held together with masking tape (150 x 125 x 55 cm) and (115 x 100 x 35 cm), Map: coloured pencil, pastel pencil, soft pastel and watercolour on synthetic silk fabric (115 x 189 cm).
Tarmac explores the engendered inability to recognise the value of the natural environment, and the neglect to care or account for it in the pursuit of industry. It is grounded in the theory of natural aesthetics and Kantian ‘disinterestedness’, the natural world having value separate from economics or possessions. The work highlights the collective intelligence it takes to develop advanced machinery, which seems to sit in opposition to the feebleness of human bodies.
The focus of Tarmac is the devastation that the development and expansion of the Kingsford Smith (KS) Airport has had on communities and the environment, as well as the impending destruction to be wrought by the Western Sydney (WS) Airport. Even with the historical insights into the disruptive development of KS Airport, governing bodies are repeating the same mistakes. Health issues have been borne from noise and air pollution, and there have been disruptions to the migration patterns and feeding/breeding habitats of vulnerable species, from birds to sea life. Now WS Airport is being developed near the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, with flight paths proposed over invaluable natural habitats and communities.
Tarmac is made of three components in dialogue; a map and two aeroplanes. The map shows organic, undefined imagery layered with a rigid schematic map of metropolitan and greater Sydney. It includes land clearing zones, flight paths, noise disturbance zones, environmentally damaged areas and animals affected by the building of the airports. These areas are drawn as bodily manifestations of pain, with elements akin to inflamed looking flesh and bruising. The aeroplanes mirror the map, with drawings of exposed bone, venation and contusions. The skin is emblematic of the fragility of ecological systems, in constant threat of the unyielding violence of the machine.
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