Suburban Cockatoos

This painting is a local Australian Suburb near a seaside resort called The Mornington Peninsula.
When I took this photograph there was a large cackle of Cockatoos having a very Lou day discussion.
I love Australian birds so much. Today I saw a black cockatoo flying over our property whilst we were all having a coffee outside in our front garden.

I intend to explore an autoethnography of my relationship with the spaces I have lived in, past and present. The suburban landscape of Australia is shifting and so is our national identity. Spaces like the iconic Australian backyard are changing and so with it the nostalgia that surrounds those spaces.
The artist Thomas Kinkade appeals to an all-pervasive impulse called the “nesting’ instinct.

This explains why artists, such as; Howard Arkley, Jeffry Smart, Robert Dickerson, Charles Blackman, Richard Diebenkorn and David Hockney did not have to travel to find artistic inspiration. Their work recorded their past and present, but more importantly, now connects through nostalgia to the future.
By connecting the past to the future and focusing on the iconic Australian backyard and the suburbs surrounding them, I anticipate conveying the ‘nesting instinct’ that reflects my personal relationship with Suburbia, nostalgia, space and identity.

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Billy Nye thanks her Australian upbringing for the aesthetic that now dominates her work.
“My work is inspired by the simplicity of the suburban streetscape; the paradise of domesticity. I see beauty in the everyday. I feel that artists David Hockney, Reg Mombassa and Howard Arkley view the mundane world with a similar sense of admiration,”

“After spending decades of my life abroad, I return to the quaint landscape of the Mornington Peninsula in my artistic mind. It has always been, and will remain a uniquely beautiful location to me; associated with nostalgia, but also brimming with potential for the future.

“These seemingly ordinary landmarks: swimming pools, houses, fences, powerlines and suburban streets, are scenes of home. I don’t feel the need to travel anymore, as my own backyard serves as my private oasis. To me, there is no place like Australia.”