Though coming into her art practice later in life, Ballarat-based artist and writer Robbi Neal has crafted a firmly established conceptual basis for her works, valuing the concepts of joy and connection above all else. Her works are awash with colour and line, often executed on expansive canvases.
After a strictly religious upbringing, a bout of cancer that Neal survived despite overwhelming odds, and a battle with depression, the artist chooses to utilise her art to give meaning to small joys. Having picked up her paintbrush again in 2020, Neal was named as a finalist in the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award later that year, and 2021 saw her as a finalist in the 66th Blake Award, and the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, to name a few. This year the artist has been selected as a finalist in the 2024 Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing.