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With the spectacular exception of William Blake it is rare to find the roles of poet and illustrator in the one individual. Usually it is a collaboration between two artists working in parallel fields who bring their particular talents into alignment. The skills of the artist in synthesising ideas into cogent visual images and of the poet in distilling ideas down into succinct and potent language often collide in the most exciting and powerful ways to create a whole that is greater than the two constituent parts. Such is the case with Daniel Oxenburgh and Alex Hayes who have created a marriage in which seemingly dissimilar artforms generate an extraordinary partnership that succeeds because it creates a special relationship enabling the best qualities of each to compliment the other.
There is an established tradition of similar collaborations in Western Australia. Robert Juniper has worked successfully with William Hart-Smith, Guy Grey-Smith created a wonderful series of illustrations for Bruce Bennett and Fay Zwicky's verse and Theo Koning and Philip Salom collaborated brilliantly on Sky Poems.
Alex and Daniel are the latest to face the challenge of collaboration and in this volume they reveal a remarkable ability to respond sympathetically to each other's work. Hopefully it will be the first of many.
Ted Snell
Professor of Contemporary Art
Dean of Art, John Curtin Centre
Curtin University of Technology
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