We Breathe as One

We breathe as One
2017
oil on linen
40 x 40 cm
Finalist, Black Swan Prize for Portraiture

In an ongoing exploration of the relationship between ourselves, each other and our planet, my work connects inner psychological terrains with outer terrains of landscape, environment and cosmos. 

My portrait of friend and artist Tamara Dean reflects our mutual interests in this exploration, as part of and inseparable from nature.

In an increasingly connected world, interdependence, a philosophy recognising that we all exist in relationship with everything and everyone else, has relevance as a way of understanding ourselves in our world.

“We Breathe as One” refers to the simple but beautiful relationship of co-existing, interdependently with nature. As we breathe out, a tree breathes in. As a tree exhales, we inhale. This essential relationship and exchange, even on a molecular level of CO2 and Oxygen, without which we cannot survive, is a poetic example of interdependence and a poignant metaphor of how, when we come into harmony with each other, we flourish together. We are not separate from nature. We too are nature.