The Barnacles Know the Tide

I painted this at the quiet hour before the tide turns on the Clyde River, near Batemans Bay on the NSW South Coast. The old timber pilings have stood in the shallows for decades, and every post is crusted with barnacles, the small creatures that know the rhythm of the water better than anyone.

The palette is built on cool blue-greys, with the dawn sun pushed to the right edge where it burns through low cloud in warm gold. That single band of light is the only warmth in the painting, and it catches the water in broken reflections between the pilings. A white seabird rests on the nearest post, the one still figure in a scene that is all waiting.

The surface is worked in thick impasto. The barnacles are built up as raised paint, the weathered timber is scraped and layered, and the water carries long dragged strokes so the whole painting changes as the light in your room moves across it.

Acrylic on canvas, 100 × 80 cm, painted edges, gallery-wrapped and ready to hang. It sits well in a living room, hallway or coastal home, and works with both warm timber and cool stone interiors, as the room mockups show.

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I’m a Sydney-based artist and mother of four. Painting has been part of my life since I was six years old, but it became something profoundly different after the birth of my fourth son, Aaron.

Aaron was born with complex additional needs, and the months that followed changed every part of my life. Alongside the demands of caring for him, I experienced a long and ongoing journey through postpartum depression. There were times when I felt as though I had slipped beneath the surface of deep water—unable to breathe, unable to see a way back, searching desperately for light.

When I found myself unable to express those emotions in words, I returned to painting.

What began as a way to survive gradually became a way to heal.

Night after night, after my children had fallen asleep, I stood quietly before a blank canvas. Each layer of paint carried emotions I could not speak aloud. Slowly, those heavy feelings transformed into atmosphere, texture, colour, and light. Painting did not erase the darkness, but it gave me somewhere to place it.

That experience continues to shape everything I create.

Across my work, light is never simply illumination. It is a symbol of hope without certainty, peace without perfection, and freedom that is often found quietly rather than dramatically. I am drawn to expansive spaces, restrained colour palettes, soft transitions, and moments where silence feels almost tangible. Rather than telling literal stories, my paintings invite viewers to pause, breathe, and discover their own emotional landscape.

Although each collection explores a different visual language, they are united by the same intention: a search for light.

I don’t paint because I have found it.

I paint because I am still looking.