Through a series of manipulated and reimagined images, this work reflects on the environmental and personal impact of the unprecedented wildfires that ravaged New South Wales, Australia. Burning an area larger than the size of England and killing or harming three billion animals, the fires marked one of the most devastating ecological disasters in the country’s history. As such events intensify with rising global temperatures, this work examines the relationship between colonialism and climate change.

Images featuring preserved Victorian museum specimens of both indigenous wildlife brought back to the UK by Australia’s colonising powers, and animals that were introduced to Australia and become rampant pests, serve as an ironic counterpoint to the millions of contemporary living creatures that perished in the wildfires. 

Using my own archival photographs from Australia I painted and manipulated them, stripping them of their original peaceful quality and reimagining them to represent the violent power of these fires, and my own fear and anger at such devastation. The intervention of my brushstrokes on the prints are intended to mirror human intervention in nature and to implant into them my emotional response to its continual destruction, whilst simultaneously trying to find beauty and hope amidst the tragedy of these lost places.