I was born in Warrnambool, a city on the coast of South-west Victoria, Australia and grew up on a farm about 80 kilometres inland. After university I went into education and then opened a retail shop in soft furnishings and homewares in Hawthorn, an inner Melbourne suburb. It was here my path crossed with that of an art teacher who took me under her wing for a few oil painting lessons to get me started. I fall into the category “self taught”. My work has been representational using oil and acrylics on canvas. Lately my direction has been increasingly towards minimalism and abstraction. I love colour and the use of colour by many contemporary artists, but in particular Peter Doig, Brian Rutenberg, Criss Canning, and Alex Katz.