Having grown up in a regrowth woodland, I was awed by the rainforests’ majesty, luxuriance and vibrancy when I first encountered them. The myriad of life was on display in all its glory. From my first encounter I was hooked.

My goal became to live near rainforest and use it as my muse for the ink drawings I was then doing. In the 1980s I found my property and built a house on the edge of the rainforest in a log dump amongst giant ancient eucalypts, leading me to appreciate their importance and use them as a muse for developing my gouache painting. I could not hide away as they continued to be logged across the landscape. Most of my life has since focussed on forest conservation. I have only recently returned to painting forests, this time using oils.