Friday 21 November - Monday 8 December  2025

The Rural Savant-Garden II 'Distance makes the Art grow fonder III'

Travelling around as a teacher enriches new landscapes, circumstances that give me subject matter to create art. I am at the heart of it all, a landscape painter. While watching the rolling plains fold away reflecting on the last transient horizon, certain locations are ingrained as musings in my endless search for inspiration. I encounter circumstances as an active observer and participant, delivering myself to conditions that give me conceptual material for artwork. A duality and anxiety driven friction exists in this methodology; the role and perspective of a teacher is to what I owe this practice. This methodology to art making has developed into a cohesive project-based formula over the last 10 years; from recording music, making short films, writing poetry and making paintings and drawings, this project is called Distance makes the Art grow fonder.

The most recent, an artist’s impression of Temora. While living and teaching in Temora in 2024, a certain musing on the circumstance and landscape had inspired the series of work ‘Distance makes the Art grow fonder III,’ within this project a new working theme became ‘The Rural Savant-Garden.’ Here in the E3 exhibition space, visitors will be witness to the latest instalment of this series ‘The Rural-Savant Garden II.’ Visitors are invited to experience a soundscape installation The Land andview a feature length film titled ‘A Town called Tomorrow.’ The films scenes were all shot on location in Temora, Ariah Park and Wagga Wagga in April of 2025. ‘The Land,’ was first recorded ‘track by track’ in 2020 in Ashford, NSW while teaching there for half a year. The soundtrack was mastered in 2025 in Brisbane, QLD.

Savant-Garden, was a Finley High School teacher band formed of three members including myself in 2019 in Finley, NSW. One of those members, a fellow nomadic teacher, a friend I served with in 2019 had passed away at the beginning of 2024, this series reflects an ode to Acky Smyth. My continued thoughts and artistic dedications are with teachers who I have served with throughout my voluntary regional postings.

(The land) mixed and mastered by Dylan Jefferys ‘Spin Dr. Studios – Brisbane, QLD’

(A Town called Tomorrow) filmed, edited and produced by Gregory Miller ‘Film Projects – Bundeena, NSW’