News

Sculptures of Glasshouse Mountains, Qld
I live near these mountains and frequently see them. The mountains are culturally significant to the Gubbi Gubbi people and the Jinibara people, the traditional owners. Before white settlement, the land was a special meeting place where many people gathered for ceremonies and trading. Each work is unique and made from locally sourced discarded tin and metal set on wooden bases. They vary in size, from 20-45cm long, 4-10cm wide and up to 12cm high. Contact me for a list and prices.

Local Contemporary Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery, 2024
This work was chosen for the annual art prize, Mt Tibrogargan, Mt Beerwah and Mt Coonorowin.

Miles Allen and Maruku Arts: Tjukurpa Puṯitja/Bush Stories
This exhibition held in Sept/Oct 2023 was a collection of paintings and sculptures from Maruku Arts and myself. The artists’ relationship with country (Central and Western Deserts) is at the heart of this exhibition. Maruku Arts is an Anangu-owned organisation established in 1984 to promote and sustain Anangu culture.
For installation shots, go here, and to find out more information and to see the works, go to Miles Allen & Maruku Arts: Tjukurpa Puṯitja/Bush Stories at Fireworks Gallery.
[Left to right below: Miles Allen, From water to water (detail): Sandy Willie, Watiku Tjukurpa-men’s law, (detail): Virginia Reid and Miles Allen, Desert Stories (detail): installation shot (photo by Mick Richards)

Sculptures of Uluru and Kata Tjuta
I’ve been working with Maruku Arts at Uluru on and off since 2018. I stay at the community of Mutitjulu and everyday I drive past Uluru and Kata Tjuta. The delight and wonder I experience never leaves me. I take photos from different places and use the photos to recreate these works.
Each work is unique and is made from discarded tin and metal set on wooden bases. They vary in size, from 20-45cm long, 4-10cm wide and up to 12cm high.
These are available from Fireworks Gallery, Bowen Hills and Mulgara Gallery at Sails in the Desert, Yulara, Uluru. If you are unable to get there and would like to find out more, contact me for a list and prices.

Calyx, SWELL Sculpture Festival, Currumbin, Qld
Liz Capelin of Third Nature Projects and I created a calyx, the seed pod of a mangrove (Bruguiera gymnorhiza), for SWELL 2022. Crafted from bamboo and paper, this sculpture is 100x larger than the commonly seen but under-valued tidal debris found in coastal wetland forests.  Mangroves play a vital role in ‘blue carbon’, the sequestration and storage of atmospheric carbon in coastal and oceanic ecosystems.  We aimed to ignite curiosity about what is going on inside mangroves and spark conversations about these important climate balancing species. (1st photo by Liz Capelin, 2nd by Yani Van Zijl)

Bunya Nut, public art project, Nambour
In June 2021 I started working with sculptor Finn Cossar to produce a public art work for Nambour. The bunya nut was an important food for Indigenous people who lived in this area. It also brought many people tohere who came for the food, to meet each other and conduct a wide range of business. Railway pins kept rail and tram lines in place, kept them open and brought people and goods into the area. This artwork is a celebration of these two important elements in our history. The work was commissioned by Reimagine Nambour and was installed at the corner of Queen Street and Howard Street, Nambour in December 2021.

If only … Sculpture on the Edge, Maleny, 22 Oct-7 Nov 2021
At the 2021 SWELL Sculpture Festival over 23 000 participants declared their love by writing on a small piece of coloured plywood and attaching it to a large heart constructed from fallen branches. Some of these declarations are displayed here for all to see and to delight in the many and varied messages. A maze is used to display the declarations, symbolising the difficulty in navigating both love and issues around climate change. Contrary to my expectations very few of these declarations were for nature and our environment. Are we too preoccupied with COVID and have other pressing issues been put on the back burner? I’m left wondering … if only we could display as much love for our beautiful surroundings and planet as we do for each other, maybe the environment would be in better shape.

15 000 Declarations of Love, Swell Sculpture Festival, 10-19 Sept 2021
We all have a need to express love in one form or another. This installation allowed people to write a declaration of love on a brightly-coloured tag to whoever and whatever they wished. A large heart made from fallen branches into which people can walk and attach their message created a place for viewers to reflect on love and to read and share the messages. The colour and the love expressed in the heart grew daily as more declarations of love were added. By the end of the exhibition, 23,564 messages had been written.

Boundaries: Lines - Between - Apart, Gympie Regional Gallery, 9 Sept - 2 Oct 2021
This was a collective project and exploration with Sam Taylor. In reflecting on how very different all of our worlds had become in 2020/2021, we explored the idea of Boundaries in our ever-changing movement patterns, work, social interaction rules, and the new role of 'Home' as a result of Covid-19. Boundaries exist all around us – we make them through our words, rules, actions and we are guided by them daily. Fences, survey pegs, lines, rulers, border crossings, roads, walls, buildings, zones, realms and rules both separate us and keep us together. For more information, click here.

Sunshine Coast Art Prize (SCAP) 2021
’What Einstein said about bees’ is in SCAP at Caloundra Regional Gallery until 10 October 2021. Both Einstein and Darwin studied bees and recognised the vital role they play in fertilising plants, many of which provide us with food. Einstein is attributed with saying 'if the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man would have no more than four years left to live'. A sobering thought. The work uses fruit and vegetables boxes from Europe tinted with ink. The bees are cut from plywood of different thicknesses and ‘inserted’ into the box. This work is in the Sunshine Coast Art Collection.

Hanging by a thread, Local Art, Local Content, Caloundra Regional Gallery (19 March to 2 May 2021)
135 species are listed as ‘endangered’ or ‘vulnerable’ on the Sunshine Coast. They become endangered when their natural habitat disappears. Our urban sprawl, introduced species and toxic changes in our environment destroy our flora and fauna.
Locally sourced and recycled materials are used in this work. Animals and birds are hand-cut out of metal numbers from bowls clubs. Ironically, bowls clubs are also threatened with extinction, two have closed recently on the Sunshine Coast. The species are suspended in a wall-less box, held by a fragile thread.

Sculpture on the Edge, Spicers Tamarind Retreat, Maleny, Qld (31 Sept to 15 Oct 2020)
The emergence and unprecedented growth of Covid-19 has turned our world upside down. Living in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland has expanded my sense of gratitude for the environment I live in, protected by the spaciousness and the presence of nature all around us.
My confinement included many restorative and grounding explorations of our local national parks. I noticed a deeper quietness and a multitude of birds. The bird population in our own garden has thrived. The absence of traffic created more sound space to hear many mesmerising bird songs.
I have used an upside-down tree to convey the absurdity of our habitual world and the loss of our carefully constructed sense of predictability. The birds in my tree remain the right way up, enriched in their daily travels by the disruptions the virus caused to our worship of grand scales and our belief in systems and polluting habits which threaten our environment.
Read Leigh Robshaw’s article in My Weekly Preview for more about this work.

Connections - Fireworks Gallery, Bowen Hills
My solo exhibition opened on 11 September 2020 at the Fireworks Gallery. Connections features works about our country, landscapes and environment. I used found objects which had served their purpose and were reinstated and restructured. The works tell stories of hope and despair, resilience and fragility, continuance and curtailment, and permanence and ephemerality. Go here to find out more.

Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland, Qld
The exhibition called Adaption at Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland with Nicola Moss and Helena Jackson Lloyd finished on 8 March 2020 shortly before restrictions for COVID-19 came into place. You can see it here.

Fireworks Gallery, 9/31 Thompson St, Bowen Hills, Qld
Matches 8: Woven is a group show featuring works by Maningrida Arts Centre, Barbara Weir, Dorothy Napangardi, Regina Wilson, Paul Bong and myself. From 6 December 2019 to 7 February 2020.

Bamboo
Go here to find out about my latest activities with bamboo and a video of Equidistant.

Garden Clouds, Art and Ecology Centre, Maroochy Botanic Gardens, Tanawha, Qld (Jan 2019)
I worked with Sam Taylor of Project Fort Awesome to build cubby-houses. Children of all ages were involved in the construction of cubby-houses of different sizes and using different claddings. We documented the work from start to finish and this was also shown as part of the exhibition. Part of the purpose of the project was to involve families and communities in the construction process thus building more than cubby-houses. The show opened on Saturday 19 January 2019.

.Sculpture on the Edge, Spicers Tamarind Retreat, Maleny, Qld (11 - 30 Sept 2018)
This annual, outdoor sculpture exhibition is showing almost 40 works, including mine called Dried Fruit. 

Have you ever wondered ... Noosa Regional Gallery, Tewantin, Qld (11 May - 17 June 2018)
I've been looking for and gathering found objects for many years. I brought some of these together to tell my own stories of country and human interaction. My recent travels and work in remote Aboriginal art centres in central Australia have prompted me in different directions. In this exhibition, I asked questions about our sense of ownership, possession, re-purposing and the ever-changing element of life and time passing. Go here for more information.

Floating Land, Noosa (Sept-Oct 2017)
30 fish were suspended over the Noosa River at Gympie Terrace, Noosaville, swinging and twisting in the breeze. Created from found objects and then decorated by students from Tewantin State School, the fish drew attention to the consequences of overfishing. 

SWELL Sculpture Festival, Currumbin Beach, Gold Coast (Sept 2017)
The sculpture of a satin bowerbird’s bower was built approximately eight times larger than in real life and gave viewers an appreciation of a bower and the bird’s courtship behaviour. The male bird builds a bower from sticks and elaborately decorates it with a variety of man-made blue objects with the purpose of attracting a partner.  
Viewers were invited to decorate the bower with messages of love for partners, wives and husbands, family members, lovers, significant others. Messages were written in indelible ink on blue tags which the writer attached to the bower. The intent was to replicate the mating ritual and establish a link with human courtship behaviour through the use of a visual language. 8183 messages were written. 

Winner – Sculpture on the Edge, Maleny
I was very pleased and honoured to receive the first prize for my sculpture Love Birds in this competition run by Arts Connect and held at Spicers Tamarind Retreat, Maleny in October 2016. 209 messages were written over the 18 days of the exhibition thus the sculpture morphed into a testament to love from visitors’ contribution, connection and interaction with the work.  

Interview with Zoneone Arts
In July 2015 I was interviewed by Deborah Blakeley of Zoneone Arts. This organisation provides online interviews that showcase the full range of contemporary arts and crafts happening in Australia and the world. The interview is on a range of topics including how I work, where I work and the influences of place, what I work with and much more.
You can read the interview and see images here.

Hill End Artist in Residence
In January 2015 I went to Hill End for a month. I am so pleased to have been given this opportunity to live and work in Haefliger's Cottage where so many well-known artists have also worked (John Olsen, Margaret Olley, Jeffrey Smart, Brett Whiteley and Ben Quilty).
Hill End is a small community classified as a Historical site by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. It is a beautiful village with much to attract artists and photographers.

Residency at Broken Hill
I undertook a residency at Broken Hill Art Exchange during May 2014 to capture and re-create Broken Hill as I saw and experienced it. I did some installation works featuring found objects from the landscape and some more traditional landscapes. I found it all very stimulating and rewarding and the Art Exchange was a great environment. The resulting exhibition of works from the residency and photos of the works can be found here.