Ian draws inspiration from the personal experiences and their coincidence in ‘personal landscapes’, producing works of energetic imagination. His combined works are rarely representations of specific locations but rather responses to the places in which the artist puts himself and his subjects.

The question of belonging permeates much of the studio output. Ian’s own experience as a child migrant clearly affects his perception of our connections with this land. It is a strange place, with its own rhythms, regularly and brutally interrupted by human incursions. He explores his, and our, attempts to coexist in this difficult terrain and climate. These early works   were a response to scattered thoughts, local sketching and reading on the settlement of Gippsland. Books such as Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon by Barry Collett provided much of the raw material for the paintings which were mostly large oil on linen works