Artist Statement
​​​​​​​The Tears of the Earth is a photo media series examining our spiritual homelessness as human beings disconnected from the land. In this series I return to the source of my imagery for the past decade – a local waterhole, nestled on a river near my home in the Great Dividing Range. The local Wiradjuri people recognise this waterhole as a sacred women’s place. It sits at the head of the east/west flow and is a site for women to tell their stories.

The imagery is constructed from video footage of the rocks, flowing river water and myself – the artist in her bed. The site of the waterhole is infused and disturbed by rumination and psychological discomfort, with the exploring figure of the artist emerging in a layered landscape of rock and water. The subconscious and the conscious visually meld, and familiar objects in the artist’s bedroom become symbols of our struggle to connect with the natural world.

In the ancient granite of the waterhole there is a natural formation of a pothole in the smooth polished surface. This well offers a point of departure into the landscape. Created over aeons it was formed by the cyclic movement of water and rock grinding the perfect formation into the granite. It is said that “the rivers are the veins of the earth . . . the water is the blood of the earth . . . some would call them tears of the earth”[1]

[1] Francis Bodkin, a Bidigal woman of the Dharawal people.
Our Rivers, more than just water, Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Authority 2010