I grew up in a house that smelled of oil paint, watching my father work without ever being taught. Thirty years on, my paintings stand on loose, accidental grounds, half accident, half intention, made somewhere in the middle where the paint and I meet. That middle is where the series takes its name: The Middle Country. My cockatoos and figures are all one thing, my family, painted over and over in a glowing landscape, with the conviction that real happiness comes from within. Painting full time since 1998, Brisbane, Australia.