BEACH

Like many Australians I live on the eastern coastal edge of the continent. My home in Cairns, bordered by the Great Barrier Reef, is notorious for summer heat rain and tropic greens. In contrast the winter months are dry and balmy with the sea invariably flat and silky.

FNQ beaches are sprinkled with people not the body crush of Noosa or Bondi, yet the natural instinct is to cluster, small bunches group together on the sand and in the water.

The Beach holds human narratives full of ‘Australianness’ and Palm Cove north of Cairns provides the ideal observatory with its long expanse of sand, fishing jetty and Islands lying in close proximity.

These figurative stories are momentary: dogs with balls, joggers, kayaks, tourists with sunburn, tinnies and tinnies, hats and conversations, colour and costumes, sunbathing and water-wallowing, sun worshiping.

Sketchy sketches and often blurry photos provide the studio starting point. Likeness is relinquished; significant is the code of beach deportment and behaviour, and the balancing act of nudging between reality and ambiguity.

Beach Diary is my first journal of visual stories about people and places, mannerisms and faces.