Water Memorial

Highly commended

2026
oil on weathered plywood
47.5 x 34.5 cm

During the height of asylum seeker boat arrivals, our patrol boat would get tasked with finding vessels in distress. We would sail towards each boat's last known position, sometimes we would find them and make sure the people onboard got to land safely. Sometimes we wouldn't find any vessels or people, instead we would find debris floating in the water — pieces of buoyant timber and empty Indonesian water bottles.

It is likely that thousands of people died trying to get to Australia. This painting is meant to memorialise those people and the risks they took. It is a memorial to the men, women, and children that were lost at sea and have never been acknowledged.

This memento mori scene is depicted with a satin blue cloth that wraps the bottle from underneath just as the ocean swallowed the boat. The backdrop is a dirty mix of yellows, reds, and blues that remind me of the oily pollution in the water surrounding the debris.