During an Australia Council residency at the Cite studio in Paris, I created three series of work:

The first is a series of fragmented views of the ornate, opulent ceilings of the Louvre Museum. Angelic figures and fantastic stucco creatures hover above; the rhythmic billowing and sweep of their drapery, at once rapturous and petrified as a hard substance: gold. Celestial beauty is preserved by a Midas-like curse.

The second series records details of garden monuments at Versailles. Here, statues act out a playful drama of furtive glances and gestures, frozen in a silent pause. In disturbing details of the metallic patina, a fish’s fin is grafted onto the soft flesh of a boy’s chest; the folds of drapery merge with the creases of a belly or thigh. When things touch, they are fused into a single, cold, rigid substance.

The third series is of crypt interiors at Montmartre and Pere-Lachaise cemetery. Opening ornate iron and glass doors that appeared to have been closed for decades, I found the objects within crumbling under heavy layers of dust and grime. Carefully arranged ornaments and tokens had disintegrated over time, creating derelict mementoes of the anonymous dead; symbols of inconsolable loss. Bathed in the dim yet lurid light filtering through the stained-glass windows, the artificial flowers alone remained, deceptively bright and fresh.