This painting waited patiently in the wings unfinished as I moved house from Queensland to South Australia. It is very much about my past and stepping into a new future.

One of the many adventures Mark and I have undertaken over the years was our move to Cairns in the mid 90’s. I found a job at an Environmental Eduction Centre where the resident crocodiles in the mangroves that bordered Holloways Beach were tracked and studied. Unsurprisingly and like many of us I was terrified of crocodiles until I learnt more about them and began to appreciate their adaptability and survival instincts and if I was to draw a bit of a long bow, not too unlike the instincts it takes to survive as an artist!

My fear, while not completely assuaged, developed a layer of respect for a creature that outlived dinosaurs by around 65 million years. While the crocodile may represent strength, survival and power there is no denying the dual aspect of their existence and our feelings of fear and loathing towards them. To elevate the crocodile into art is to question not only these ideas but the basic idea of what beauty is.

The white peacock standing on his back creates a sense of Beauty and the Beast. I have been fascinated by the white peacock since visiting Isola Bella on Lago Maggiore (while on an Australia Council Residency in Italy) where the castle built by Carlo III for his new wife Isabella was set amongst magnificent gardens filled with white peacocks.

Many years later scrolling through that other dreamworld, Ebay, I found a white peacock for sale and purchased it. It came in the mail and has been waiting over two decades to be painted. Equally the lion footed carved table that the crocodile is sitting on was purchased in Gertrude St Fitzroy back in 2003...also a long time waiting to be painted. It feels like this painting has been fermenting for almost as long as it took Carlos to create his Palazzo.

The sky in the background is like a window out to another space with a bird in flight seeking freedom into a brand new world or perhaps just from a dinner party that hasn’t quite gone to plan. In this particular Dining Room all the planning may have also gone out the window with a crocodile appearing under the tablecloth, suggesting the sneaking nature of those things we fear and our social anxieties. Or maybe the crocodile is just the annoying guest in the dining room overpowering the conversation and we just have to wait until they slide away.

Either way, I hope our Dining Rooms will always be places of ferocious conversation, romantic stories, a place to satisfy our most basic needs and share who we are...both the beauty and the beast that exists in all of us.