Real and Imagined, Split Screen, Before and After

The painting and artwork series Real and Imagined, Split Screen: Before and After, represent a continuation of themes previously explored, particularly the complex interplay between landscape, memory, and cultural identity. It examines the European garden tradition and drawing attention to how cultivated landscapes can function both as aesthetic expressions and instruments of power. By referencing the manicured and ordered spaces of European gardens, the work aims to highlight how these imported forms were used as tools of settlement. In this context, the garden becomes a metaphor for colonisation — a space where displacement and erasure of Indigenous presence are subtly enacted under the guise of cultivation and beauty. The juxtaposition of 'real' and 'imagined' elements, along with the use of split-screen imagery, aims to reinforce the tension between past and present, between imposed narratives and lived histories and inviting the viewer to reflect on the enduring legacies of colonialism embedded in the Australian landscape.