Where do the marks come from? Are they bodily gestures, shapes, lines or marks created by chance? Do I make them intuitively or do they instead belong to a kind of rules based order? How can they be manipulated? How do they relate to one another, to the ground, to the surface? Is it a conscious visual language?

I wrote notes a few weeks into my masters (MPhil, ANU university). I was encouraged to position my work within the wider context of abstraction. I’d been prompted to think about whether my work was purely abstract expressionist or whether there were other methodologies at play. In order to examine this further I turned my focus away from the marks I was making from within and instead tried to find things in the world around me that could be a painting. I compiled these observations in a zine and wrote a little about automatism and mark-making.

Today I’m writing my first entry into a studio journal and thus I have started to document my arts practice, ultimately to fulfil the requirements for a MPhil – to record my thinking, methodologies and research in order to analyse my process and make connections that otherwise might go overlooked or discounted.

I’m going back to art school. I want to fill gaps in my knowledge, learn how to write and talk about my work with intention and confidence, but mostly I want to leave the house and be among artists again. Today I accepted the formal offer to study a Master of Philosophy at the Australian National University (majoring in visual arts).

I name the colours I create. Even if the colour red comes straight from the tube and already has a name – they say pimento I say tomato, ha! I like to make colour collections though it’s a pretty tight group and I enjoy being the gate-keeper deciding who can join. Nico Green is one of my favourites, it’s a kind of staple a friend to everyone.