When I moved to Australia from France, everything seemed huge, bright and powerful. Here, even tiny ants can kill you … The native birds have such extraordinary colours; it feels as though Mother Nature started painting Australia and ran out of colours once She got to Europe. The landscapes are so vast and really make you feel like a tiny speck in the universe.

When a friend said that he was going to sail to Tasmania on his monohull and photograph the islands from the sea, I was extremely curious but also sceptical. What more can there be to show that we haven’t already seen from the land?

On his return, he showed us his best shots, and Tasman Island really jumped out to me. It was as though this stone giant came out from the depths of the sea and reached out to the sky, projecting thousands of rock needles. I really wanted to draw this extraordinary place with graphite pencil and charcoal on canvas to keep my materials as natural as possible.