This painting no longer exists. I wish it did. But for whatever reason, it lies beneath layers of paint in 'Woman, Earth'.... which can be seen further along the line. At this point in developing the painting, I felt the dilemna, a rising up and deterioration of something human. However, I could not stop here. This photograph is all that exists of this woman image, perplexed by joy and venetian blinds in a collision of eras. Overly connected. So, I continued on, and on with the same image. This process, and some have said in the past, the stupidity of my expense, are quite evident here for all to see. I have never found a way to compromise the impetus that carries my interest as a painter. This is, however, my story... repeated within so many works, over so many years. Is it stupidity?

An 8ft tall canvas .... strong but fragile male spirit. This painting came out of the body, which houses imagination. There is no difference. Imagination relies entirely on the body, our wonderful nervous system. Thinkers who write about these matters often separate body and inspiration. I disagree.

i remember well thinking it silly the way some asian peoples venerated ancestors, leaving morsels of rice and flowers for them each morning outside their homes. it is quite different now. i teach three days each week in menindee, a largely indigenous community in western nsw, australia. i tell students that their ancestors live in them. i suggest that the ancestors' humour, affections and courage have brought us here into our shape. there are no raised eyebrows at this suggestion. quite the opposite is the response. their work is beyond their years consequently, and is attracting great interest from curators and galleries in sydney, and beyond these shores.

This tall 8 ft canvas is one of a series of eight paintings begun in 2005, half of them still in process. "Earth" has undergone many years of yearning. She is a rhizome of my visual DNA. In order to arrive at this result of the female of the land required more than five years of explosive shovellings of thought, alongside equal amounts of heavy scrapings of paint onto studio floor. She was the bandmaster in my recent exhibition.... the mother who was looking out for and encouraging the many other works, though not greatly noticed herself.

This work came with my usual reliance on intuitive forming... I was now living inside of such a difference to what I was used to when closer to the coast. Human life is different in the low rain zones of outback country. I enjoy the way this image sits inside a thick, brief image of man and land and dog in difficulty and clarity. It is an existential and brave image.

Unlike many Australians, I have developed a deep dislike and mistrust of Renaissance style portraits.

However, just a skin beneath the image you see here lies such an image. The painting began with a ten week realistic study of Boris' massive Czech head in the outback.

This process was nearing its completion, so it was time for Boris and Jana, his wife, to see the fruits of my labour before it went public at the regional gallery along with the Archibald Prize .

We enjoyed the usual wine and nibbles, but when the time came for them to leave, Jana looked again at the painting and nervously declaimed to Ann- "this is not Boris".

Deep down, I could not have agreed more, and had said as much previously but my spineless need to 'fit in' had uncharacteristically gained the upper hand in this work, ....and i had just four days to remedy the situation.

Rather than feeling distressed, I actually felt relieved, with permission to do something more necessary, expressing a different form of respect for the subject of the painting.

The final result re-imagines the idea of what a portrait can be, one that encourages a different involvement in deciphering a face.

This is the work that gets closest to the way I see the land out here, with its human ingredient. It is this junction of land and human that irritates interest in me today. I hate to think of the many detours taken to get to this point. There were more ideas that found their death on this platform of canvas than usual for me, and I am known for good, difficult deaths in the way I go about my practice. 'river earth' is parallel to the 'boris' portrait of 2007, inasmuch as both were excruciating in their process, and in which i dealt with addictive western takes on realism, towards something closer, more real here. both were portraits, one of a particular human, the other of the land in which i live, way out here.

This small canvas hooks an old fish, being alone. The dance is not forlorn. The colours seem grey perhaps, but there is light, and space in which movement is still possible. A grunty little piece into which I placed much sense of my take of the world. Point blank.

This painting is one of my large and more difficult works. The subject of the land is ancient. Yet the treatment of the subject seems to be a jazzed up abstraction. Yes, it is so. The painting contains two perspectives. One is from a plane at 18 thousand feet. The other is with feet firmly on the ground, at just six feet altitude. These two perspectives are combined equally in this work. It is the same ground felt through both views. With some luck, this large work was awarded a generous prize in 2012, in Broken Hill, the "Outback Art Prize", worth $15,000.

After moving out to Broken Hill in 2002, I struggled for over two years to find that crack in which both this arid landscape and my imagination could take hold. "Dance and ashes' was the first work in which I felt a strong connection was beginning to happen. The colours are not typical of the outback, but the weight and energy of the earth's textures and dancing patterns is integral. This painting has been touring Spain for twelve months, receiving considerable interest, especially in the ancient treatment of the human image dancing lustily, in dust and difficulty. july 2013- i have just been on a website with photos of the earth and our moon from outer space. And this painting came to mind.

This painting was commissioned by two very special people, who happen to be cousins. It was shaped by the land in which i have lived out here in arid zone for 10 years now, and by a piece of music. I listened repeatedly to Messiaen's "Quartet for the end of time" while working the painting's surface and many rhythms. I was nervous about their response to the work, especially after being given an open brief to do whatever seemed necessary to me at the time. But I am happy indeed that their deep passion for the work was and remains strong. A good commission.