The Daily Drive - MAT19
Origins in the Tweed Valley
Murwillumbah Arts Trail 2019 (MAT19)
There are moments in an artist’s life where the work quietly changes direction before the artist fully understands it themselves.
The Daily Drive emerged during my time living in the Tweed Valley, where the landscape slowly revealed itself not as scenery, but as presence. The roads, bridges, cane fields, weathered signs, paddocks, and distant mountains became part of a repeated rhythm, travelled so often they moved beyond documentation and into something more reflective and internal.
The digital studio office, editing artworks for MAT19
At the time, I was already experimenting with ideas around abstraction, process, and photographic transformation. A chance meeting over coffee with a local involved with the Murwillumbah Arts Trail unexpectedly opened the possibility of creating an exhibition and engaging in the local event.
The first prints off the printer to test the paper image transfer process
Photo transfer process underway
The first batch of photo transfer images
The original concept was modest. I intended to use photo transfer techniques onto small art boards, working with intimate 30 x 20 cm pieces. Early test prints, however, did not unfold as expected nor create the visual depth I was searching for. The process began shifting rapidly through experimentation, leading me toward trusting my previous experience and use of archival rag papers and which offered a more painterly photographic surface.
What emerged surprised even me.
The original source photographs, drawn from everyday drives throughout the Tweed Valley, began transforming through process into something that carried a strong pop-art influence while still retaining the emotional atmosphere of the landscape itself. Familiar roads became cinematic. Cane fields dissolved into moody atmosphere, tone and rhythm. Rural spaces became meditations on form, repetition, and perception.
Second iteration of the concept with digital fine art printing on Hahnemühle museum rag paper
Artwork preparation for MAT19, cotton gloves used throughout the handleing process
Artworks printed, mounted and prepared for delivery and installation at the Maurwillumbah Arts Trail 2019
The exhibition itself also evolved unexpectedly. The originally allocated exhibition space changed, eventually becoming an arcade retail-style presentation space within the Arts Trail framework. The setting created an immediate accessibility and visibility within the flow of the event, and was located right beside my favourite cafe.
Catalogue preparation and packing artworks for delivery to MAT19 exhibition space
Murwillumbah Arts Trail 2019, media and map of artists and exhibitors MAT19
The Daily Drive installed and ready for MAT19
By the time the Murwillumbah Arts Trail weekend arrived, the project had developed a quiet momentum. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday brought a steady flow of visitors, conversations with other artists, and strong engagement from local audiences. The exhibition almost covered its costs, something significant for what had essentially become an experimental body of work developed through instinct, long hours, and creative risk.
Behind the scenes, however, the process had been intense.
The experimentation and image processing became all-consuming at times, involving days and nights of continuous refinement. Twelve-hour-plus working days were common as I pushed the images further and further, attempting to find the balance between photography, abstraction, and emotional resonance.
Looking back now,
The Daily Drive represents far more than a regional exhibition.
It marked an important transitional point in my creative evolution, the moment where straight photographic documentation began giving way to a more interpretive visual language that would later become central to many ART1 collections. The seeds of the later POP-influenced works, colour experimentation, abstraction, and emotional landscape interpretation were already present here in their early form.
Most importantly, the work emerged from lived experience rather than constructed concept.
It came from repetition.
From observation.
From being present inside a landscape long enough for it to begin revealing itself differently.
The beauty was not something added later.
It was already there, waiting quietly inside the daily drive.
Original Catalogue MAT19
Following is the complete original catalogue from The Daily Drive collection for the Murwillumbah Arts Trail 2019 - MAT19.
Note: The event has been rebranded and renamed and is now presented as the Lava Arts Festival - Murwillumbah.
The Daily Drive Curated Selection at ART1
A curated selection from the original MAT19 exhibition is now included within the ART1 Catalogue as part of Pop Art - Vivid Country, and is also presented as a standalone collection on the Exhibitions page, The Daily Drive