What is your current art practice about?
At the moment I am exploring ways to mark paper with fire and ink depicting landscapes, painted with colours including warm greys, blues, and white. Often the works are small and gridded.
Where are you based?
My studio is in the sunroom off the back of our home. I share it with Phoenix my feathered studiomate. She is a Green-Cheeked Conure parrot, it’s really lovely hearing her chirping away and keeping me company while creating. I have an old western NSW School Principal’s desk which I work on, lined up along the back of it are lots of jars with brushes in them and art supplies for quick and easy access. There is an easel in the corner for oil painting. It’s always very messy and cluttered.
Did you study fine arts or are you self-taught?
I have drawn on and off since I was young and am a graphic designer by trade. I started out as a self taught artist, sketching semi regularly, but I craved more. My passion was really ignited when I became friends with my children’s after school art teacher Gabbi Lancaster who introduced me to Stephen Gorton, who had a life drawing class in the Old Fitzroy Hotel, Woolloomooloo. Once my children had finished primary school I yearned to be more creative and studied visual arts at a small, wonderful art school within St George TAFE part time and completed a Diploma and the Advanced Diploma in Visual Arts.
What is your subject matter?
I absolutely love painting landscapes, particularly the way light filters through over time. The light, the colours and the tones are constantly changing, it’s a wonderful challenge to paint them. My underlying principle is to try to capture those subtle senses within the landscape, the movement, the energy and the perception of time, combining working both en plein air and in the studio. I am not only representing locations, but also personal echoes and connections to my surroundings.
What materials do you use and why?
At the moment I use ink and water colour on paper either in the studio or plein air. Ink and water colours are very portable and easy to clean up. I love making my own sketchbooks and filling them with drawings and paintings of surrounding landscapes. The size of a lot of my works at the moment are small, as I love being drawn into the works while making them. The small works build up to create a larger cluster of landscape imagery to be either hung together or as small separate paintings.
Pick three art world players you would invite to dinner.
An ancient cave painter, Leonardo Da Vinci and Clarice Beckett.