A living archive of Cairns, where history is carried through the roots of the landscape.
What the Roots Remember explores Cairns through layers of memory, place and change. A monumental tree anchors the composition, its trunk and spreading roots holding fragments of the city’s past while contemporary Cairns emerges beyond.
Historical references are woven into the tree rather than presented as a timeline. Early ships appear through the cooler atmosphere to the left, while architecture, the railway and fragments of Cairns’ sugar-cane history emerge from within the trunk and roots. Some are immediately visible; others reveal themselves only through closer looking.
Around them, the landscape shifts into the present, mountains, water and the contemporary city, while the tree connects these different moments as one continuing story.
The work reflects the idea that a place does not simply leave its past behind. What came before remains beneath the surface, shaping what grows from it.
The landscape changes, but the roots remember.
Medium: Mixed media – acrylic and oil on canvas
Dimensions: 61 × 91 cm
Year: 2026
Framed: Unframed
A living archive of Cairns, where history is carried through the roots of the landscape.
What the Roots Remember explores Cairns through layers of memory, place and change. A monumental tree anchors the composition, its trunk and spreading roots holding fragments of the city’s past while contemporary Cairns emerges beyond.
Historical references are woven into the tree rather than presented as a timeline. Early ships appear through the cooler atmosphere to the left, while architecture, the railway and fragments of Cairns’ sugar-cane history emerge from within the trunk and roots. Some are immediately visible; others reveal themselves only through closer looking.
Around them, the landscape shifts into the present, mountains, water and the contemporary city, while the tree connects these different moments as one continuing story.
The work reflects the idea that a place does not simply leave its past behind. What came before remains beneath the surface, shaping what grows from it.
The landscape changes, but the roots remember.
Medium: Mixed media – acrylic and oil on canvas
Dimensions: 61 × 91 cm
Year: 2026
Framed: Unframed
