FEBRUARY

The long Australian summer has been excellent, as I have been wandering through and enjoying the festive BBQ "silly season." down here. Family, friends, functions, food, fun and frolicking about the east coast of this continent have kept me highly amused. I will leave with the usual thoughts of "why not stay in this excellent country? It is a good question and I can only answer it with the fact that I must commute to work. My next studio/workspace happens to be located in Taiwan so off I fly. Asia beckons me back for a few projects. First a short stop in Bangkok then I relocate to the Taipei Artists Village for three months of serious studio time.

Planned trips to China, Mongolia, Cambodia, the Arctic and a return to Europe at the end of the year now become more real. As usual juggling this with that, dates, places, and funds to achieve everything is an ongoing and very tricky procedure. In the end after much organization and planning it really is a matter of crossing ones fingers and hoping that things actually happen. The Melbourne Unmapping exhibition of late last year went well and the new work done over summer has sorted and prepared me for what I shall be busy with in Taiwan. Directly after I complete the Australia-China Council studio residency there I shall move to Hong Kong to exhibit the second Travailogue show at John Batten Gallery.

After much socializing over the southern summer I now look forward to a little bit of anonymity as well as the opportunity to concentrate on new work in the Taipei Artists Village. I believe the studio is very functional, Taiwan sounds fascinating and totally foreign to me…. exactly what I desire!