Giles Alexander When the fire came my loss was total (Australian bushfires from space)

At first glance, this painting is a familiar image of our blue planet. But up close, a brown tint stains the cloud mass in the foreground. First-time Wynne finalist Giles Alexander has painted an immense drift of bushfire smoke, spreading ominously over the Australian continent, which was captured in a photo taken from NASA’s International Space Station.

With this painting, Alexander shifts our habitual sense of scale and points to the smallness and fragility of our home in the cosmos. He explains: ‘My painting practice wonders about “us”; I am interested in the human species. My work seeks to ask how we find a sense of belonging in our landscape, in a city, in a country, in the world, indeed in the universe.’