While making this piece 'Gatherer', I found myself drawn to the expressive potential of hands cradled by angular folds of fabric. As I worked, these hands at the centre of my composition naturally commanded more detail and emerged as a thematic focal point. This process deepened my appreciation that an essence resides in the actions and gestures of our hands. The subtlety of hair, merely suggested through the polish on the copper, along with intentionally vague and lifting facial details, also encourages viewers to look beyond the individual. Gerard Russo is a Melbourne-based artist. After completing a Bachelor of Fine Art at RMIT university he began to experiment further at his home studio with copper etching and his love for expressive mark making. Illuminated artefacts of copper and timber may best describe Gerard’s work, as they are elegantly industrial in material and contemporary in form. Gerard interprets the long standing methods of painting, mark-making and copper etching to inform the creation of his contemporary luminaires. The mark-making is paramount to his art and it is evident that in the enduring image etched into the copper, that the strokes are from a hand that aspires to sketch. We see the expressivity as embossed raw texture along with an extra sense of depth from the reflectivity in the elemental copper that envelopes the glowing imagery. Artwork image: Brent Lukey