Background
I started out researching, tutoring and lecturing in Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne. I spent a decade and a half as the designer and owner of the Australian women’s clothing label Manque Design. I have also spent a lot of time coaching creative professionals to greater business success in my consulting practice Creative Conversation.
But my first and greatest love is making Art, which I have been doing my entire life.
Since having my first child in 2011, I have devoted increasing amounts of time to painting. In 2016 this became my primary profession. Alongside a full commissions calendar and regular releases of new bodies of original paintings and prints, I also license my work to lifestyle and decor brands globally. I create and teach online courses and have also enjoyed the enormous privilege of hosting an artist’s retreat on the French Riviera.
Working from my home studio in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, I predominantly sell my work privately and by commission. My paintings are held in private collections in Australia, US, Canada, Europe Japan, UK, and the Middle East.
I am proud to be the winner of the 2022/23 AGES Society art prize.
Artist Statement
My abstract floral and botanical paintings seek to capture and communicate the dynamism and magic of nature through fluid, expressionistic and colourful mark making. My mixed media interpretations of flowers and botanical forms, depicted at times realistically and also abstracted to the simplest of marks, flow intuitively from my brush. Sometimes they are inspired by a wispy memory, and others by foraged botanicals from my local environment.
When beginning a work, I allow the first layers of fluid acrylic colour to flow in swiftly applied, sweeping, gestural strokes, blending wet in wet, to achieve spontaneous and unpredictable colour stories and compositions.
I spray water onto wet paint and allow the organic drips to define the shape and direction of what later may become the stems of botanical forms. I often scribble simple shapes in wax pastel, or etch into the paint, maintaining a looseness of approach. At times I use stencils of spidery organic shapes in metallic spray paint, or apply buttery oil pastel, always seeking opportunities to build exciting textures.
Led intuitively, layer by layer I build exciting, complex, impactful, and magical imagined floral and botanical dreamscapes. Sometimes they appear to be floating in space, or they may be anchored in a dream-like landscape. One mark informs the next until the larger vision emerges.
I am endlessly fascinated by how art can access the parts of ourselves for which we have no words and how the application of paint and the mixing of colours has the potential to spark immense joy and delight. I am inspired by female botanical artists of the past and aim to push the boundaries of what is traditionally defined as botanical art.