Port Phillip Bay I & II
Woodcut prints
These works are inspired by the dramatic view across Port Phillip Bay from Mount Eliza—an ever-changing seascape that continues to shape my creative vision. And yes, I know it's technically a port, not a bay—but for me, the name evokes a more personal, poetic sense of place.
Port Phillip Bay I and II are woodcuts, a medium I love for its immediacy and raw energy. Influenced by the bold, expressive prints of the German Expressionists and Edvard Munch, I’m drawn to the untamed nature of traditional woodcut printing. At the time, artists used whatever wood they could find, carving quickly and instinctively into rough, uneven surfaces. There was no clean lino, no smooth surface—just the artist, the block, and the subject in front of them.
That history resonates with me. The process forces a surrender of control—less detail, less precision, more gut and gesture. The marks become visceral, the images alive with movement and mood.
In these prints, I’ve tried to capture not just the coastline, but the feeling of the Mornington Peninsula—the trees standing guard over beaches, the wind moving through scrub, the vast sky meeting the water. It’s a landscape etched into memory, and now, into wood.
