Celebrating Australia’s beauty, colour and detail.

There’s an abundance of life and energy in Australian nature. This fact has been one of the few consistencies in my life. By painting what I encounter I pursue beauty, explore deep emotions and make connections between the heart and mind inside me, and the changing world around me.

Background

I was born in 1979 in Albury, Australia. I lived my first nine years in a quiet neighbourhood between a colonial-era cemetery and a cement storm water channel, flanked by unkempt reserves. I would explore the neighbourhood looking for tadpoles in the drain water, collecting cicada shells from the gum trees and picking mushrooms from the bases of gravestones.

On weekends my parents, two siblings and I would pile into the car for day trips into regional New South Wales and Victoria. On holidays we’d go to Sydney where we would visit beaches and national parks. During these years I spent a lot of time on long bush walks, in picnic areas on riverbanks and daydreaming as I stared out the car window at passing countryside.

Although I didn’t realise it at the time, it was quiet life where I had plenty of time observing and absorbing the habits and behaviours of Australian nature while dreaming and imagining.

During the next five years my family would move to Wollongong, back to Albury, and then to Inverell and Goulburn. Although leaving friends and starting new schools was difficult, I was always around gumtrees, rivers and birds, and the weekend road trips continued, so these were reliable constants during times of personal change, especially when I was alone because I had left old friends but not yet made new ones.

At fourteen I moved to Canberra where I stumbled through my teenage years. In the 90s Canberra was a city that was happy to live within nature, not conquer it. It was where you could ride your bicycle for thirty minutes to be surrounded by forest or to stand at a lake’s edge. There was an abundance of open space and it was common to see kangaroos and other wildlife. So even though this was a faster period of my life, Australian nature was always there grounding me, even if I wasn’t paying close attention to it.

When my 13 years of schooling came to an end I still had no idea what career I wanted to pursue, but I had identified an urge to be creative and an intense fear of spending my life working jobs I didn’t enjoy. These were my motivations for studying creative writing at University of Canberra.

After graduation I was in the mood for adventure so I packed up and headed to Melbourne. At the time I had thought I had discovered all my strengths and weaknesses as a creative while at university, but I was soon exposed to a more intuitive form of expression in visual art and design. I began creating visual art at age 29 and this launched a new and exciting period of growth, that would lead to me spending thousands of hours building up my skills, trying different styles and mediums, and eventually exhibiting in public spaces.

I have changed a lot of the years, but one thing has remained consistent and that is a longing to be with nature. I still enjoy losing my thoughts while walking in a forest, spotting birds up in the canopy and hopping between rockpools looking for crabs like I did when I was seven years old. A part of this habit is about looking for danger (snakes and spiders are everywhere) but more often about spotting things of interest that delight me, such as wombat burrows, blooming gumnuts or birds squawking up in the canopy.

Now I capture and share the natural beauty I find through paintings and this brings me closer to understanding my life, existence and purpose. 

Exhibitions and Activities

Solo exhibitions

Upcoming

2021 Title to be announced, City Library, Melbourne, Australia

Past

2020 Encounters with Australian Nature, Virtual Gallery

2018 Bird of Paradise, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2018 Watercolours, Umberto Espresso Restaurant, Melbourne, Australia

2016 Comfort Food on Comfort Clothes, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2015 Flowers Drowning, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2015 Finding Flowers in Human Cities, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2014 Too Big to See, Too Small to Miss, 99 Art Musuem, Beijing, China

Group exhibitions

Past

2021 Me and UooUoo – Royal Children’s Hospital 150th Anniversary Commission and Art Trail, Melbourne, Australia

2021 9 by 5 Exhibition, Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre, Dandenong, Australia

2020 State of Disaster, Melbourne, Australia

2018 Toorak Art Walk, Toorak Road, Melbourne, Australia

2018 Australasia Now, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2017 Petite Worlds, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2017 Painting, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2016 Toorak Art Walk, Toorak Road, Melbourne, Australia

2016 Art in Space, Frankston Art Centre, Frankston, Australia

2015 Utopia for Spur Afrika, Amora Riverwalk Hotel, Melbourne, Australia

2015 Imago Mundi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, Italy

2015 New Surrealists, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

2015 Port Phillip Street Gallery, Bay Street, Melbourne, Australia

2014 Near and Far, 99 Art Museum, Beijing, China

2014 International Youth Salon, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, China

Other activities

2017 Rimbun Dahan Artist Residency, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2016 The World Is So Large, I Want To See It. Information session: Why apply for artist residency programs? Bee Bookstore, Beijing, China

2014 Dong Dong and Lu Lu, Arts residency program, Beijing, China

2014 Dong Dong and Lu Lu, Arts residency program, Nanjing, China