“Walking home through the forrest”

The series was composed as an installation of 10 small portrait paintings arranged in front of a 3 x 4 metre charcoal drawing. The drawing depicted lighthouses as symbols of a light that leads the way, with unravelling legs that spiral down through the drawing, becoming flowering strands of DNA, leading to objects of daily life arranged along the bottom. In amongst the DNA strands and the lighthouses float images of cells dividing and a growing blastocyst which depict the beginnings of new life. The small paintings each depict a different male member of the artist’s family, from his grandfather to his children and nephews; and each figure is accompanied by flowering native tree, after which the painting is named. Taken as a whole, the work illustrates the enduring journey of one genetic print.