The Art Journal
The Edge of an Idea
When I first encountered this image on the water, I was struck not by what it was, but by what it suggested. That is always the most compelling moment for me as an artist — the instant when reality dissolves and the mind begins to wander into speculation. In this work, what began as a simple reflection transformed into something far more ambiguous: a landscape that might be a desert dune beneath a restless sky, or a surreal dreamscape where form and meaning are suspended. I titled the piece The Edge of an Idea because it lives precisely in that liminal space between recognition and imagination. Like much of Magritte’s work, it resists literal explanation. The golden sweep in the composition feels both monumental and weightless, and the comb-like structure just beyond it hints at human presence without ever revealing its purpose. It’s this deliberate ambiguity — this invitation to complete the story ourselves — that reminds me of Magritte’s poetic juxtapositions. At the same time, there’s something distinctly metaphysical here that recalls Giorgio de Chirico. His paintings often placed ordinary objects in strange, timeless spaces, creating an unsettling stillness that forces us to slow down and look. That is very much what I hope to achieve here. The horizonless sky, the floating forms, the strange sense of scale — they conspire to hold the viewer in a moment of contemplation, on the edge of knowing but never quite certain. For me, abstraction is not about abandoning reality but about opening it up — loosening its grip just enough for imagination to take hold. The Edge of an Idea is a meditation on that threshold: the place where perception falters and possibility begins.
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Nutured by blue
“Blue has no dimensions; it is beyond dimensions.” — Yves Klein In Nurtured by Blue, I found myself immersed in the velvet depths of colour — a blue so lush and generous it seemed to breathe light into being. From its tranquil surface, gold rose like warmth from still water — a moment of quiet alchemy between calm and radiance. There are moments on the water when everything falls away — the noise, the movement, even time itself — leaving only light, colour, and breath. Nurtured by Blue was born from one of those moments of stillness. What I first saw was a gently rippling sea of blue, calm and unhurried, over which a soft golden light began to unfold. There was a sensuality in the colour — a lushness that felt almost tangible, as if the blue were woven from silk or velvet. The surface shimmered, but beneath it, I could sense a depth that was steady, generous, and alive. Although blue is often thought of as a cool or distant colour, this one felt warm. It wrapped around me like fabric, rich and embracing. It held the light within its folds and slowly fed it back as gold — a quiet act of nurturing. That’s why I called the work Nurtured by Blue. The blue here isn’t simply a background; it’s a presence — both still and sentient. It gives permission to pause, to breathe, to be held. As Yves Klein once said, “Blue has no dimensions; it is beyond dimensions.” When I look at this work, I sense that infinity — a space both intimate and vast. The longer you stay with it, the more it reveals: not a scene, but a feeling; not a subject, but a state of being. When I view it now, I’m reminded of warmth within coolness — how a single colour can express both serenity and vitality. Perhaps that’s the secret of blue: that it carries the calm of the sea and the tenderness of touch all at once. That’s what I saw. But perhaps you’ll see something else — a reflection of your own calm, or a memory of light rising from silence. The Alchemy of Blue and Gold The gold in Nurtured by Blue doesn’t rest on the surface so much as it rises from within. It feels alive, as if the blue itself breathes light into being. Together, they form a quiet alchemy: the blue, deep and nurturing, offers its calm; the gold, radiant and fleeting, becomes its voice. In that relationship, there’s something profoundly human — the way stillness gives birth to thought, the way silence releases sound, the way light emerges only because darkness makes room for it. The result is harmony — an endless, luminous exchange between depth and radiance, body and spirit, water and light. Call to Reflection Standing before Nurtured by Blue, I invite you to linger — to let your eyes rest in its depths and feel the quiet warmth that lives within the blue. It’s a work that rewards stillness, that opens slowly, revealing its softness through time. Nurtured by Blue is a limited edition artwork (1 of 5), printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art Canvas and can be acquired through our on-line gallery.
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Impressions of a Turner Landscape – Sunrise: Light, Memory, and Turner’s Legacy
I am delighted to introduce a brand-new addition to my most successful series, the Impressions of a Turner Landscape Collection. Unlike earlier works in the series, which I numbered, this new piece carries a more descriptive title: Sunrise. The collection itself is created mostly around 8.30 in the morning, when the sun acts like a film light, sharpening its focus on the water’s surface and revealing reflections that dissolve into abstraction. Sunrise is my interpretation of what nature offers at that moment — an impression shaped by light and imagination — evoking the timeless beauty of dawn. J.M.W. Turner, whose work inspired the title of this collection, often allowed light and atmosphere to dissolve material reality into something more elemental. In his late seascapes, the horizon vanishes into pure colour, pure feeling. I like to think he might have recognised in these water reflections a similar impulse: to see not just what is before the eye, but what lingers in the imagination after the light has passed. For me, Impressions of a Turner Landscape – Sunrise is less about recording a single instant than about capturing the way nature and imagination work together to create a landscape that is at once real and entirely invented. Each time I return to it, I feel both the sharpness of that morning light and the calm clarity of a dawn remembered.
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Pollock’s Pool: When Warships Vanish into Abstraction
Pollock’s Pool Pollock’s Pool (150 x 100 cm) emerged during the creation of the Art of Navy project. At the outset, I faced a challenge: how could I capture reflections from the surface of the water when the dark grey hulls of the warships seemed to dissolve into the equally dark blue of the harbour? I was unsure if there was even an image to be found. It was in this search that the unexpected appeared. While drifting with my camera around Royal Australian Navy vessels of all kinds, I was suddenly drawn to turbulence breaking across the surface. The movement caught the light in surprising ways, transforming absence into presence. Where I expected nothing, lines, splashes, and swirls began to reveal themselves. I hesitantly pressed the shutter. Later, when I looked at the image, the recognition was immediate: it was Pollock. The turbulence echoed the rhythm and spontaneity of his drip technique — paint flung, dripped, and splattered across canvas in a way that was at once chaotic and deeply ordered. Yet here, there was no brush, no hand, no paint. It was simply water, reflecting sky and light, composing its own abstract painting. Pollock once said, “I am nature.” That idea resonates powerfully here. For me, abstraction isn’t something imposed — it’s something revealed. Just as Pollock trusted chance, gravity, and gesture to uncover subconscious form, I find that the surface of the sea reveals its own abstractions. In photographing it, I am not creating but recognising — seeing what is already there. In this work, the sea becomes both medium and message. The medium is the surface of the water itself — constantly shifting, reflecting, and refracting — while the message is the truth it reveals about abstraction and self. What we see is not only turbulence on water, but a mirror of how nature itself paints: spontaneously, unpredictably, and yet with a rhythm that feels inevitable. It leaves me asking — and perhaps it asks you too: where does the boundary lie between what nature creates and what we recognise as art? And then, in thinking of Pollock, another question arises: was he revealing chaos, or uncovering the very patterns that nature had always painted for us?
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Distances in Reflection: Between illusion and truth
Hiroshi Sugimoto once said, “What the eye sees is not what the camera sees.” That thought lies at the heart of Distances in Reflection, but in truth, it runs through all of my work. When I took this shot, I was out in the kayak, close to the hull of a boat. My process is always improvisational—I lift the camera, point, click, and by the time the shutter opens, I’ve already drifted past what I thought I was framing. Later, when I looked at the image, I was startled. What I saw on the screen felt utterly different. At first, I was struck by the Rothko-like expanse of yellow. It carried the same weight of abstraction—large, immersive, emotional fields of colour. Then my eye caught the white edge, like breaking waves against a shoreline. And gradually, the whole thing began to read like an aerial view, as though I were high above looking down on an offshore coast. And here’s the paradox: in one sense it’s an illusion, but in another it’s true. I was offshore, floating on water, and when I leaned over to capture the reflection, I was aerial too. The metaphor folds back into reality. What the camera gave me was not simply what I saw, but something transformed—a proposition to see differently, to hold the work as both truth and illusion at once. This aesthetic illusion is something I’ve come to recognise as central to my practice. In Paintings on Water, the reflections were so painterly that the boundary between photograph and painting dissolved. In the Sand Talk Collection, Sydney sandstone and water conspired to create patterns that echoed Aboriginal desert paintings, carrying memory and cultural resonance far beyond what I had consciously seen. And in the Offshore Aerial Collection, the water’s surface revealed vast coastlines and sweeping geographies that could have been seen from thousands of feet above, yet were born entirely from reflections at sea level. Distances in Reflection belongs to this same continuum. My role as an artist is not to stage or to control, but to mediate: to accept what the camera and the water offer me, to cut and frame, and then to place the work in a space where others can see and experience it. Every artwork I create, then, becomes more than an image. It is a proposition—an opening into another way of seeing. What begins as a fleeting reflection on the water becomes an invitation for others to pause, to question, and to wonder: what am I really looking at? That is the practice I am developing. Not simply documenting the world, but working with water, reflection, and chance as a way of thinking about perception itself.
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Songlines on the Surface: Traces of Memory
The Sand Talk Collection has always been about listening to the dialogue between sandstone and water. Sydney sandstone, with its ochres and golds, carries an ancient presence. When reflected on water, it shifts and rewrites itself, becoming a living map of the land. In Songlines on the Surface, my eye settled not on sandstone’s sweep but on a cluster of raised shapes floating across the reflection. They appeared less like simple surface marks and more like an aerial petroglyph — fragile traces inscribed by water, echoing the way pathways, stories, and memory become embedded in country. The naming of the work was not straightforward. At first, I was struck by sandstone’s shimmer, its ochres and golds. But as the reflection unfolded, it became something else: water becoming land, sandstone becoming map. From that recognition emerged a deeper connection to ancient motifs, marks that seem at once fleeting and timeless. This work is part of a continuing exploration into how reflections on water reveal more than surface appearances. They offer traces of memory — songlines inscribed not in stone, but in light and movement.
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Beneath a Golden Horizon: A Drift into the LandEscapes Collection
Beneath a Golden Horizon is my latest addition to the LandEscapes Collection. The work, and the fluid, dream-like animation that accompanies it, delves deeper into the central themes that have driven this series from its inception: the porous boundary between perception and imagination, and the creative power of ambiguity. The LandEscapes Collection began almost by accident. When downloading photographs that I hadn’t deliberately framed—just fleeting impressions of boats and water—I suddenly noticed entire landscapes revealed within them. Nature had offered up these abstract vistas, as if by chance, and from that moment the collection took shape. That accident became a turning point. I realised that what I was capturing wasn’t simply a reflection, but an illusion that suggested another kind of place. A horizon line formed out of the shadow of a boat. A mountain range appeared in the ripple of a wake. What was meant to be ordinary became extraordinary, an invitation to escape into imagination. This is where the tension in the work lies. Our brains are wired to make split-second assessments about what we see—an instinctive survival mechanism. At first glance, the eye tells you, “this is a landscape.” Yet with a second look, the certainty unravels. You start to question: am I looking at water, sky, or something altogether different? The work deliberately plays with this moment of doubt, holding you between recognition and uncertainty. That in-between state is where creativity lives. As the viewer, you are not simply observing; you are completing the artwork. You bring your own experiences, memories, and subconscious imagery to what you see, and in doing so, you create landscapes that are uniquely yours. A reflection of a hull might become a desert plain. A glint of sunlight might transform into the shimmer of an endless horizon. Each eye constructs its own world. Beneath A Golden Horizon A Subconscious Drift The accompanying animation for Beneath a Golden Horizon is an attempt to capture something closer to my felt sense during these moments of creation. It is not about being submerged or subterranean. Instead, it suggests a drifting into the subconscious, the state I often enter when snapping a shot or in moments of deep reflection. At times, it feels as if nature and water have swallowed my consciousness, holding me in suspension. The new work, Beneath a Golden Horizon, emerged directly from such a state—an in-between place where perception becomes porous, where reflections dissolve into landscapes, and where the horizon is not fixed, but constantly shifting in the mind’s eye. Dwelling in Ambiguity In the end, this is the paradox I invite you into: not to fix what you see, but to dwell in the ambiguity. Here, reflection becomes landscape, perception drifts into imagination, and the horizon shimmers golden—always present, always elusive, always just beyond reach.
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Surreal Estate: When a Boatshed Grew an Eye
I sometimes wonder if I’ve become a “water surrealist.” Out on my kayak in Middle Harbour, I drift with the camera ready, waiting for reflections to do their work. One moment the surface is calm, the next it throws up a vision so strange, so dreamlike, that it feels deliberately crafted. Yet it is entirely accidental, gone in an instant. This boat shed was one of those moments. Normally plain, even modest—a functional structure perched on the water’s edge. But in its reflection it became something altogether different. The striped cladding bulged and curved as though the shed itself were breathing. The apex of the roof twisted into a playful wave, like a structure shrugging off its straight lines. And in the middle, a pale blue ripple formed a perfect oval: an eye. Suddenly the shed wasn’t a shed at all—it was alive, looking back at me. The Surrealists would have recognised this transformation. André Breton spoke of creating a “crisis of the object,” where ordinary things lost their certainty. René Magritte painted houses and skies to unsettle our trust in appearances. Salvador Dalí melted the solid world into fluid absurdity. Their work was painstakingly imagined, constructed from dream logic and paradox. What I encounter on the water, by contrast, is unplanned. Yet when a reflection reshapes a shed into a sentient form, the effect is startlingly close. That’s when the title came: Surreal Estate. It made me laugh, but it also felt inevitable. Sydney is famously obsessed with property. Auctions, renovations, record prices—it’s the city’s great fixation, the fuel of conversation at cafés and dinner parties alike. Even the humble boat shed carries cultural weight, a badge of status on the waterfront. And here, on Middle Harbour, that status symbol dissolved into absurdity. The shed breathed, warped, and grew an eye, as though the harbour itself were mocking our seriousness. The Surrealists loved puns and wordplay, seeing humour as a way to shake us out of habit. Duchamp’s readymades, Magritte’s sly inscriptions, Dalí’s flamboyant titles—all remind us that language can be as unstable as vision. Surreal Estate follows in that tradition. It is both a pun and a provocation: a playful title for a fine art photograph that undermines our faith in the permanence of bricks, mortar—or even weatherboard. Yet humour is only the beginning. The image also suggests something more profound: that surrealism is not confined to human invention. Out here, on the harbour, it arises naturally. The reflections distort, animate, and—at least for a moment—become sentient. And sometimes, as with this shed, they turn the tables and look back.
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Desert Movement 4: Water, Memory, and the Desert’s Golden Artistry
“I journeyed through the desert not to cross sand, but to uncover the self." — Ralph Kerle, inspired by the spirit of Al-Mutanabbi With the arrival of Desert Movement 4, the Gold in the Desert Collection takes on a new layer of meaning. Captured in the Dubai Marina, this work transforms architecture into fluid bands of gold, cream, and teal—rippling strata of heritage, commerce, and memory. My practice has long been grounded in the belief that reflections are more than optical phenomena. In the right context, they reveal the cultural undercurrents of a place—its unspoken narratives, aspirations, and contradictions. In this way, Desert Movement 4 becomes part of a psychogeographic map, where the city itself performs in the theatre of its own waterways. This relationship between water and abstraction is deeply rooted in Arabic culture, most notably in the art of Ebru. Ebru, which flourished in the Ottoman Empire but has even earlier origins in Central Asia, is the process of floating pigments on the surface of water to create intricate, unrepeatable designs. The image is then transferred onto paper, silk, or other surfaces, capturing a moment of movement forever. Garip Ay, Turkish Ebru Artist Historically, Ebru held both practical and spiritual significance. In Islamic decorative arts, where figural representation was often avoided, Ebru offered a way to create beauty through pure abstraction—patterns shaped by the natural flow of water and guided by the artist’s hand. The unpredictability of the process echoed the philosophical belief that divine beauty exists in the balance between order and chaos. By the 17th century, Ebru travelled along trade routes into Europe, where it became known as paper marbling. Western artisans embraced it for bookbinding, calligraphy, and decorative papers, often marvelling at its exotic origins, though rarely acknowledging the depth of its cultural lineage.In Desert Movement 4, these traditions surface again—not through pigment and comb, but through the reflective skin of the Dubai Marina. Here, the city becomes the Ebru bath, with architecture, light, and tide painting their own patterns. The work is both contemporary and ancient, modern abstraction layered upon centuries of decorative tradition. As with all pieces in the Gold in the Desert Collection, Desert Movement 4 invites you to look beyond the surface, to see how the water remembers—and how memory itself ripples through the meeting of desert and sea.
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Captain C. Gull on Alert, Too: A return, A reframe
Every so often, I find myself drawn back to earlier works. Not with the intention of revisiting the past, but with the curiosity of seeing them anew—almost as if someone else had made them. With time and distance, your perspective shifts. What once felt finished begins to feel like a doorway, still open. That’s how Captain C. Gull On Alert, Too came into being. This new work emerged from a return to an original piece in the Captain Seagull series. As I looked again, I began to recompose—truncating, expanding, working in closer. And as I did, something remarkable happened: Captain C. Gull presented himself in a different kind of way. He stepped forward in the composition, more dominant, more defined—almost watchful. The abstraction of the water still danced around him, but now the sense that one is looking at water was stronger, more apparent. It was a surprise. A very interesting surprise. In this work, unlike Captain C. Gull On Watch (original) or On The Helm, or even the nested image in Rip’s Liquid Surrealism, the emphasis shifts. The seagull is no longer a component of the vessel. He is the figurehead. The hero of the story. So I titled it Captain Seagull On Alert, Too—a play on both two and too—because this time, it felt like the Captain was alert to me. Watching me, just as I had once watched him. Art, like the water that inspires it, is in constant motion. And sometimes, looking back is how we move forward. Feeling the pull of this surreal moment? Secure your own limited-edition print of Captain C. Gull on Alert, Too by visiting the product page here.
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Vision, Light & Gratitude: An Artist’s Afternoon With the Guardians of Australian Sight
Linda Fagen, Executive Director, Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation; Dr Lyon Robinson AM; Ralph Kerle; Dr Con Petsoglou (l-r) This July marked 41 years since I received a corneal transplant in my right eye—a gift that allowed me to keep seeing the world in full colour, to follow light as it dances across water, and to become the artist I am today. The donor of my cornea was believed to be around 60 years old at the time, which means—remarkably—that I’m still seeing the world through an eye that’s now over 100 years old. To honour that extraordinary milestone, I spent a beautiful afternoon with three remarkable people whose lives are intertwined with mine in profound ways: Dr. Lyon Robinson, AM, the eye surgeon who performed the transplant all those years ago. Professor Con Petsoglou, my current ophthalmologist and now the head of the NSW Eye Tissue Bank. Linda Fagan, Executive Director of the Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation, whose work helps drive and fund the research that enables and advances life-changing procedures like mine possible for thousands of others. It was a meeting filled with warmth, laughter, and gratitude—and at times, emotion. Because this wasn’t just a celebration of the past, but a glimpse into a future where the gift of sight will be available to even more people through continuing medical innovation and human generosity. Why This MEETING happened Our meeting took place just as DonateLife Week 2025 (July 27 – August 3) was beginning. This national campaign encourages Australians to consider becoming organ and tissue donors—a gesture that can change or save up to nine lives, including restoring sight through the donation of corneas. As someone who received a donor cornea in the early 1980s, this week holds particular meaning. My transplant took place during a time when donated tissue had to be used within just 48 hours. That meant doctors like Dr. Robinson were often called in late at night, rushing into surgery to make the most of a rare and precious gift. Today, thanks to improved preservation techniques and screening, donated corneas can be stored for extended periods up to 14 days and shared across states, giving even more people the chance to see clearly again. A Moment 41 Years in the Making Dr Robinson (l) with Dr Petsoglou (r)( viewing archives of the record of every single corneal transplant completed in New South Wales since 1972 Sitting across the table from Dr. Robinson—now in his late 80s and still full of warmth and wisdom—I was able to thank him in person for restoring my sight. He recalled the era when eye surgery was still evolving and spoke modestly about the care and precision it took to ensure each transplant succeeded. Remarkably, he told us he’d never had a stitching failure during his entire career, a very delicate part of the operation when attaching the donated cornea to the eye surface. Professor Petsoglou, who now leads the NSW Eye Tissue Bank, spoke about the responsibility of selecting and testing donor tissue—a meticulous and evolving science. What struck me most was his acknowledgement Dr. Robinson was his and many other Australian eye surgeons original mentor. That legacy continues in the eyes and lives of countless Australians. The Hazen Film: Sight, Art, and Understanding (To be released Spetember 1 2025) Post our informal coffee meeting, we visited the premises of the NSW Eye Tissue Bank and along with its senior management viewed a short film produced by Hazen Digital that follows my artistic journey and the profound effect this corneal transplant has had on my work. The film explores how my sight was reshaped by keratoconus—and how that condition left a lasting imprint on the way I see and represent the world around me. The distortions I once saw—ripples, ghosting, softened edges—still echo through my abstract photographs, even though my vision has long since been restored. Watching the film was a powerful reminder of how personal vision truly is. Final Reflections Art begins with light. And light begins with vision. For 41 years, I’ve been lucky to have that light flood in through a donated cornea. It has shaped how I see the world—and how I show it to you through my work. I owe that to a stranger I never met, and to a surgeon who made sure the light reached me. I want to thank Dr. Robinson and Professor Petsoglou for their lifelong dedication to restoring sight and for sharing this meaningful afternoon with me. Their work—quiet, persistent, and generous—is what allows artists like me to keep seeing, keep creating, and keep believing in the beauty of human connection. I hope you enjoy the photos and take a moment to watch the film. How You Can Help If this story moves you, please consider taking a moment to register as an eye or tissue donor. It’s simple, takes less than a minute, and could one day restore the gift of sight to someone like me. You can find the official registration link on the DonateLife website (donatelife.gov.au). And if you’re already a registered donor, let your loved ones know—it’s one of the most important conversations you’ll ever have. With gratitude,Ralph
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Under the Blue: Stone in Motion, Water in Stillness
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” — Leonardo da Vinci Just after first light I was paddling on Middle Harbour when the sandstone cliffs beside me did something almost mischievous: they tipped themselves onto the water’s surface and stretched into a long, serrated ribbon beneath a flawless sky. The air felt utterly still, yet in the glassy reflection the cliffs seemed to drift as if they had discovered their own silent current. Watching that quiet contradiction unfold, I knew I had the heart of a new piece—one I’ve called Under the Blue. This print is wide—ninety by one‑hundred‑forty centimetres—and the Hahnemühle canvas holds every subtle grain of rock and ripple of water. I chose the title because it places us in two worlds at once: beneath the sky’s blue canopy and beneath the mirror‑blue veil of the harbour. In that double realm, solid stone suddenly feels as fluid as the water that carries its image. What fascinates me most is the way the eye keeps asking questions. Is the rock really sliding sideways, or is the water quietly carving it away? I think of neuroscientist Eric Kandel’s idea that meaning isn’t fixed in an artwork—it’s completed inside the viewer’s mind. Under the Blue invites that little spark of doubt, that playful negotiation between what we know and what we see. Time, too, has a cameo here. Sandstone forms over millions of years—one patient drip at a time—yet a mirrored reflection can vanish with a single breath of wind. I love that the content nature gave me lets both tempos sit together, unhurried, under the same blue hush. For collectors who enjoy the details: this is a giclée print on Hahnemühle High‑Quality Canvas, signed and limited to ten editions. The first one is available now at AU $2750 unframed, and if it finds a home before 31 July 2025, I’ll include a signed photograph showing the exact spot where the cliffs decided to perform their little sleight of hand. I’d genuinely love to hear your own moments under the blue—times when a landscape seemed to move while everything else held its breath. Feel free to share in the comments, or just drop me a note. Thanks for reading, and for stepping into this mirrored world with me.
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