Surface Detail

The loneliest sound in the universe might be the crunch of Curiosity’s wheels rolling over Martian gravel. I imagine it echoing like the familiar rumble of tyres on a dirt road except on Mars, there is no one to hear it. No witness, not even a microbe. This imagined sound becomes a poetic reflection on isolation, scale, and perspective—a resonant metaphor for our place in the cosmos: present, searching, and profoundly alone.

Surface Detail marked a pivotal moment in my practice, presenting my oil paintings publicly for the first time. The works were driven by an exploration of colour, inspired by The Word for It, a short story written for the exhibition by UK novelist Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown. The collaboration followed their earlier creative exchange during a 2014 residency at the Nirox Foundation.