Materials are very important to me, and always have been.

Now that other people have my works, it's really important to me that what they have has longevity.

I finished VCA at the height of the last big recession in the early 90s, and seeing that I was not going to be able to join one of the dwindling number of commercial galleries, I started an ARI called the Basement Project which ran for three years. Things came a little at a time and all of a sudden it's 20 years later and I'm still making art, which is really all I ever wanted to do.

Perhaps because of this, many have looked at my practice in terms of science and technology, however, for me it is just as informed by Surrealism and mythology.

I put a lot of time and thought into my work, which I see as a sort of respect for both the work and the audience, and I have always been very concerned that the materiality of the work reflects that.

I don't want the ideas to be limited by what I can physically do. The ideas come first.

Melbourne is a fantastic place to work, but it's not the centre of the world.