Melaleuca Paper Bark is Part Three of my Field Notes 30 × 30cm Collection.
Melaleauca are known as paper barks. Their Latin name is Melaleuca quinquenervia, because the leaves have 5 lines on them. They are common street trees in Brighton and flowered several times during the year. I confused them with calistomens until I attended a wild flower workshop on the sunshine coast. The flowers are fascinating with exhuberant stamen and tiny waxy petals along the stems.
Field Notes is divided into ten parts, each exploring a plant or tree I have encountered in my Brighton, 4017 neighbourhood. The specimens were observed on my daily dog walks, with a sample brought back to the studio where I made drawings and paintings from it.
I worked on this collection from January to October 2026, so the paintings also record the changing seasons and the flora of my new neighbourhood as the year unfolded.
Each part consists of five paintings. Two were painted directly from life in natural light in my studio. These are titled Tabletop and Vessel. The other three paintings were developed from my drawings and worked as a triptych, exploring abstraction and the act of looking.
The final two parts of the collection developed a little differently, with two paintings in each. By this point I was ready to move on from the 30 × 30cm format and began working on my first 90 × 90cm paintings. Sometimes a collection tells you when it is time to change direction.
There are 44 paintings in the complete collection, each measuring 30 × 30cm and painted in acrylic on ply. The ply panels are cradled in meranti.
I chose the 30 × 30cm format because it is the size of my sketchbook, so it felt like a natural scale for this project. I also liked the connection to the idea of a foot - these paintings began with looking, walking and noticing what was around me on foot.
Melaleuca Paper Bark is Part Three of my Field Notes 30 × 30cm Collection.
Melaleauca are known as paper barks. Their Latin name is Melaleuca quinquenervia, because the leaves have 5 lines on them. They are common street trees in Brighton and flowered several times during the year. I confused them with calistomens until I attended a wild flower workshop on the sunshine coast. The flowers are fascinating with exhuberant stamen and tiny waxy petals along the stems.
Field Notes is divided into ten parts, each exploring a plant or tree I have encountered in my Brighton, 4017 neighbourhood. The specimens were observed on my daily dog walks, with a sample brought back to the studio where I made drawings and paintings from it.
I worked on this collection from January to October 2026, so the paintings also record the changing seasons and the flora of my new neighbourhood as the year unfolded.
Each part consists of five paintings. Two were painted directly from life in natural light in my studio. These are titled Tabletop and Vessel. The other three paintings were developed from my drawings and worked as a triptych, exploring abstraction and the act of looking.
The final two parts of the collection developed a little differently, with two paintings in each. By this point I was ready to move on from the 30 × 30cm format and began working on my first 90 × 90cm paintings. Sometimes a collection tells you when it is time to change direction.
There are 44 paintings in the complete collection, each measuring 30 × 30cm and painted in acrylic on ply. The ply panels are cradled in meranti.
I chose the 30 × 30cm format because it is the size of my sketchbook, so it felt like a natural scale for this project. I also liked the connection to the idea of a foot - these paintings began with looking, walking and noticing what was around me on foot.
