Lee Wilkes: Caricatured (and true)

Overview

Whether you're bored, distracted, lost in thought or genuinely interested the sight of the horizon, everyone stares off into the distance. You've probably done so several times today, with or without realising it.

Not everyone turns the images they see when they're fixing their gaze on a far-off point into a series of paintings, though; just Lee Wilkes. The Australian visual artist takes inspiration from time spent living in the remote islands of Torres Strait, with Caricatured (and true) the end result.

Just looking at the scenic seaside images, it's easy to understand just why each has been captured in artistic form. They're real but dreamy, based on actuality yet still hazy, and speak of both the place they represent and something much more broad and universal. Wilkes' work also proves both soothing and probing, asking viewers to vanish into a collection of pieces about vanishing points.

Image: Lee Wilkes, Infinite possibilities (of a western sunrise), Oil on wood.