Walking about, I gazed at architecture and walked through these strange, half built, colourful, scaffolded forms. There were tall buildings, unformed.
Deconstructed city scape
A little wonder and trepidation
On waking I was engrossed. I immediately wanted to see it as a metaphor for myself in progress. (I was young.)
For a few months, I would continue to explore deconstructed or unfinished city scapes in my dreams.
Dream City is a series of sculptural works exploring the poetics and complexities of our internal landscapes.
The project began with a callout to friends, family, colleagues, students, and followers, inviting them to share a significant or recurring dream. Each dream became a starting point for a sculptural response — an exploration through materials of the complex terrains within our subconscious.
The dreamers traversed diverse landscapes and experienced myriad sensations; my task was to translate these inner journeys into material form. Through experimentation with plaster, silicone, crystals, resin, found furniture, objects, and textiles, I created assemblages that give shape to the rich textures of their dream worlds.
My practice draws heavily on Surrealism, psychoanalysis, and the exploration of dreams and the subconscious. Material investigation is at the heart of my process — I work with matter to better understand the world and my place within it. Dreams, like waking life, are often shaped by the materials and environments we encounter: familial homes, city streets, natural landscapes, fantastical realms.
In Dream City, sharing and responding to dreams becomes an act of empathy and trust. The resulting works — shifting between the representational and the abstract, the humorous and the profound — invite viewers to reflect on the interior landscapes we all carry within us.
Presented here at City Library Gallery, these deeply personal works find a place in the public realm, opening a conversation about the intimate and the collective, the material and the imagined.
This project was supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants.
Photos: Christian Capurro
Some kind of wintery European village
I didn't touch anything or interact with anyone. Someone was with me, but I don't know who they were. A friend of some kind. I only remember waking up at a point where I was walking past a wet/icy wooden bench like you'd find in a beer garden and noticing particularly an empty, frosty pint glass left on the table. Maybe there was snow around on the ground.
I don't think I wanted to be where I was in my dream and nor did I really understand why I was there. I just trudged along. Maybe it was crunchy with snow or icy underfoot. It felt like I was in northern Europe somewhere.
I was on the top of a cliff, kind of like the Alps. Very green grass, bright skies, and also really tall flowers, their stems were as thick as me.
I was hovering a few centimetres above the ground, really slowly.
I didn't interact with anyone in this dream, I was alone
The flowers being really massive. The colours were so bright it felt like I was in an animated movie.
I felt very free. There was nobody around but myself and I felt happy and peaceful about that.
I was travelling on a boat around a haunted bay, that only seemed to be haunting my companions and I.
We were travelling via boat, and encountered various complications with goblins and krakens, although they weren't able to harm me. We eventually made it to shore.
I was carrying a book on Zen, which I was fervently protecting. I had a collection of drugs, as well as a jar of honey. All the items felt significant, and I was hoping to discard the drugs at the right opportunity. The goblins and krakens I encountered all felt entirely manageable, their fantastical origin rendering them impotent.
The haunting without being haunted was significant. It initially started as fearsome and scary but after a while it became clear that I wasn't in any danger and was able to cross the bay unharmed with my cargo.
I was walking. In the past I had lived there so it was familiar.
I was talking to my partner and was grumpy. We sat outside for a coffee and I apologized. She looked at me very calmly and directly.
I said that I had been having a very hard time for the last six months. She had died suddenly (true). She kept looking at me in such a loving and calm manner and said ‘I thought something like that must have happened.’ I made myself wake up.
On waking, I felt weak, disoriented and shaken. I felt the bed next to me, but it was empty.
I was running away fast panting out of breath from big ugly rats, rats with big teeth and wrinkly faces, but I couldn’t get away the rats were biting me.
The significant parts were the details of the rats: huge teeth, very wrinkly, wonky tails, fur that looked like they had been electrocuted and the panting of myself was the main sound.
When I woke up I wasn’t scared but confused and intrigued a dream or a nightmare I’m not sure.
My bookcase opened and led me to a high tech (1984) train station. Revolutionary.
Being led through a Corridor of books, up a ladder to the top room of my urban interior dream, to a small square room bathed in a soft yellow glow. I sat down in the very centre. When I awoke my dream immediately came back. The massive train station beneath me: base. Intuitive walking towards books, led me to the unknown, yet to realise newness.
Acceptance. Go with the flow. Safe.
It is not a nightmare as such, but it tends to wake me up, stressed when I have it. It relates to either losing a piece of work or it being destroyed in some way or made unrecognisable.
I’ve had it relate to my art, in that I have finished a piece that I’m really happy with, such as a painting, that I either I can’t find again or the paint disappears, or if it's a sculpture it falls over and smashes into small pieces.
A nightmarish type dream I have had several times relates to tidal waves. I would either be near or on a beach and see the water draw back and realise a tidal wave was coming and then try to run, sometimes with my family and sometimes just myself, to higher ground. When I look over my shoulder I see this wall of water getting closer and closer. Sometimes I get swept up by the wave and experience that tumbling disorientation under the surface like when you have been knocked over in the surf.
I have swum all my life , surfed, have a history of lifesaving and also a lot of experience operating boats and small ships in rough seas.