tree
These works were produced whilst I was living in a small beachside community just south of Cairns in the Australian Wet Tropics. On my daily beach walks I watched the inexorable loss of beach dunes and their vegetation consisting of large paperbark stands. These paperbarks were once located in the back dunes but over time the beach profile has changed as foredunes eroded away. Now they are lying on the sand as great carcasses scrubbed white by the tide, inhabited by a myriad of small sea creatures.
I regurlary visited the tablelands nearby where there is some very dry areas and fire is a regular feature. I watched large gum trees sucumb to the scorching heat and the older hollow habitat trees were an extraordinary sight as they burned from the inside out.
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This sight brought to mind the story of El Grande`, Australia's largest tree found in 2002 during clear felling of old growth forest in Tasmania's Derwent Valley. It was accidently burnt in 2003 by Forestry Tasmania and subsequently died later that year. El Grande` became a symbol for the destruction of Tasmanian Forests.
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