Treecolour

There is a secret place in Middle Harbour that few paddlers seem to know.

It disappears from the main waterway into a narrow, shallow channel enclosed by mangroves and native trees. Entering it feels like leaving Sydney behind. Bull sharks are known to move through Sydney Harbour and its estuarine reaches, adding another, largely unseen dimension to the environment.

This is one of the most tranquil environments I have experienced on the harbour. When the weather is still and sunlight enters the enclosed waterway, the trees descend into the water as colour. Greens deepen into turquoise, illuminated vertical lines flicker across the surface, and dark branches appear to float within the reflection.

The title Treecolour is a play on what I encounter there. I am not simply looking at trees reflected in water. I am watching the landscape dissolve into colour and then reassemble itself as an artwork.

The movement of the kayak and the subtle motion of the water transform the vegetation into something painterly—an Australian landscape released from its literal form.

Yet this sanctuary carries an uneasy history. Tanneries once operated throughout the surrounding Willoughby catchment, and polluted runoff travelled through waterways leading towards Middle Harbour. My own family history is connected to that industry. The knowledge creates a tension between the extraordinary peace I experience there and the environmental consequences of the industrial landscape that preceded it.

Nature has not erased that history, but neither has it surrendered to it.

Mangroves, native trees, water and light continue to create a place of silence and renewal.

Treecolour emerged from that contradiction: beauty and damage, inheritance and regeneration, stillness and unease. It is an artwork about the colours of an Australian landscape, but also about what may lie beneath them.