Lost Horizon

Lost Horizon (2005–2006) explores the changing Australian urban landscape at a time when increasing density and new approaches to urban development were beginning to alter the familiar suburban environment. The quarter-acre block was increasingly giving way to a more densely built landscape of apartments, offices and confined spaces — a landscape in which the natural horizon was progressively obscured by architecture.

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The work developed through two related series, City Portrait and The Reflection. City Portrait focuses on the ordinary architecture of Sydney’s CBD — the office, hotel and apartment building — using repetition, geometric form and tightly cropped compositions to emphasise the density of the built environment. The Reflection turns to the glass surfaces of the city, where familiar buildings, traffic and sky become fragmented, distorted and abstracted. These constantly changing reflections offered a way of considering the transitory nature of the urban landscape, while also finding moments of beauty and distraction within the everyday city.

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The etchings were developed through multiple-plate colour etching, softground, hardground, aquatint, sugar lift, burnishing and à la poupée, with different processes used to explore shifts in light, colour, atmosphere and the changing appearance of the city.

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Lost Horizon, solo show at Robin Gibson Gallery 2006. 

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