It was 31 October 2023. I’d just finished designing this linocut when my brother called from Bunbury, WA, to tell me he was dying. I didn’t believe him. The surgeon took the phone and confirmed it-necrotising fasciitis, untreatable, with less than 24 hours to live.
I was in my Ballarat studio, too far to reach him. So, I began carving.

We stayed on the phone through the night. In those morphine-softened hours, we talked, laughed, remembered. He was lucid, thoughtful. Me, tearful and scratching to think straight. I was his closest. And I was so far away.

He slept. I carved. We talked again. The hours passed quietly. I finished carving that kookaburra- heaven-facing, proud and bold- only an hour before he died at 2.13pm the next day.

His name was Gary Robin. He is my King of the Bush.

This print is a tribute to him, and to the strange intimacy of a shared death at a distance.
Grief etched into every line. And now, every time I hear a kookaburra laugh or look at that print, I’m reminded of the love that held across distance, time and silence. He is still with me. He lives in the work.