The Peacock Triptych is the precise moment my work crossed the threshold from skin to steel. For more than a decade, my lines had lived in the temporary medium of tattoos — created on skin, bound by the impermanence of healing and fading. This triptych was the first time I designed those lines to last forever.
It began unexpectedly, in the first Melbourne lockdown. I had spent nine months creating Renascence, my second self-published sketchbook, as a way to keep my hands and mind alive in isolation. When it was complete, I wanted to thank the clients and friends who had supported me. I designed a small gift — a black steel laser-cut bookmark, depicting a woman dancing among flowers.
The moment I held that bookmark, I knew everything had changed. The lines were no longer fleeting. They were permanent, weighted, tangible. They stayed. That single object sparked an unshakable idea: what if my drawings could live beyond paper and skin? What if they could stand, endure, and hold their own space in the world?
Within days, the bookmark’s composition had grown into something monumental — a three-panel steel work standing over a metre tall. At the centre, a peacock emerged instinctively. They had been a recurring presence in my life — from my grandmother’s farm to my earliest sketchbooks — symbols of confidence, grace, and the refusal to shrink. The side panels became women in quiet dialogue with the bird, the whole set framed in flowing Art Nouveau forms that carried my tattooing style into a new medium.
Designing for steel meant learning to think differently. Every line needed structural integrity; every curve had to connect; every gap had to be calculated to hold weight. It was the beginning of my obsession with engineering beauty so it could last.
When the panels arrived from the cutter, I held my breath. Would the flow survive? Would the detail hold? As I unwrapped them, I realised — not only had the design survived the translation, it had gained presence. Installed on a white wall, they caught the light and came alive, casting shadows that shifted like living patterns.
The Peacock Triptych is where VANTA was born — not as an idea, but as a practice. It is the bridge between my tattoo heritage and my fine art steelwork, the work that proved a line could be both fluid and permanent. Every steel statement I’ve made since traces back to this piece.
