‘Others Dream’ questions our relationship with nature and ourselves and ideas about female identity through unsettling, otherworldly scenes.
Female figures inhabit primordial, foreboding landscapes in poses of stillness and fluid movement that require a re-thinking of notions of vulnerability and power. These women contradict stereotypes of feminine frailty; they appear to be birthed into nature, or perhaps birthed from nature; naked yet fearless and empowered.
These images speak to a significant part of my own identity as a woman. I was born on a rural counter-culture community in Wytaliba, about 100 kilometres out of Canberra, where everyone grew their own produce on the land and washed and swam in the river. Nature had a vivid presence in our daily life that is often absent in the city, where I now live. Often, I wake and find myself yearning to be in the bush and close to flowing water.
Moonscape rock formations are merged with the female form, seamlessly blurring the lines between the human body and the ancient landscape. At dawn and dusk, the edge of slumber and first light, these figures awaken out of the darkness and live in the hours when others dream.
