Daina is a practising artist based on the Sunshine Coast, creating original artworks and products reflecting her love of nature, people and colour. Alongside selling her own work, she runs art workshops on the Sunshine Coast, QLD, providing a nurturing environment for adults and children so that they may feel comfortable to fully express their creativity.
Daina's art is a way to celebrate the extraordinary beauty in our everyday, that we can often overlook. She brings her subjects to life, most often plants and animals, in vibrant colour using watercolour, acrylic, ink and pen. She will not shy away from working in new materials and also loves to experiment in sculpture and ceramics, as well as theatre set and costume design. Variety is most certainly the spice of this artists life!
Daina’s art classes for kids can now also be found online at: https://outschool.com/teachers/Daina#usoVAcKNPv and her own work and in person workshops on her website: www.dainamccauley.com
Daina has been a maker, creator and artist ever since she was young. She excelled at art in high school winning top of her Year Grade in Year 9, which set her on the path to pursue this passion, albeit with some interruptions along the way.
With a BA Honours in German and Commerce from Warwick University, UK, Daina found herself in a career in advertising in London, where she took the opportunity to put herself through art college at nights at the Mary Award Centre in London. This led to an Art and Design qualification which allowed Daina to continue her studies in Art and Design at University level (MA Fine Art UNSW COFA year one completed).
Daina has held exhibitions in London at the Mary Ward centre in 2004, Sydney (Compassion Australia) 2010 and at Redux Art Studios, Alameda, California in 2015 as well as Queensland, Australia. She is hugely passionate about the importance of arts in education, as a way of further nurturing imagination in children and as a support to improve performance across all subject areas and indeed in life.
Since 2016 Daina has been teaching at local schools and art studios, now running her own studio taking small workshops as well as running larger private events such as corporate team building days.
Painting and creating is a place where we can find ourselves in a state of flow and acquire many new skills, and this is what really intrigues Daina these days.