I'm an abstract painter based in Toowoomba, Australia, with a bold minimalist style.
My practice is informed by my experience as an artist, qualified art theorist, lifelong art buyer and recent student of art therapy.
My art is for people who see their homes as a reflection of their identity and want to punctuate their walls with art that signals who they are, where they have been, and who they are becoming.
Background
I have loved art my whole life and, after school, studied a Bachelor of Art Theory at the UNSW College of Fine Art.
During this degree I spent three years analysing paintings, debating postmodernism, and discovering the bold voices of artists like Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer and the Guerrilla Girls. My favourite period of art history is from conceptual art – "But is that really art?" – to postmodern abstraction – "My five-year-old could have painted that."
Despite my fascination with art, my career took an uninspiring detour through employment law and human resources, and I spent more than 20 years sitting in white rooms with blank walls.
In recent years I delved back into art practice as a tool for supporting myself through life-changing experiences. I lived through menopause, divorce, parenting teenagers and grieving the loss of a parent - all at the same time.
Current Practice
At present, I work as an abstract painter with a limited palette and an emphasis on the elements of line and texture.
I work in the abstract because I'm drawn to paintings that don't have a single, fixed meaning – I want my work to be experienced rather than explained.
I love working with a limited palette because the simplicity appeals to me. I find open patches of black or white particularly calming which is the essence of what I am seeking for myself and hope to share with the viewer. It also enables me to feature my favourite art elements – line and texture.
Line because of its rich history of usage as a communication device—gestures, marks and symbols we understand through both lived experience and ancestral memory.
Texture because I believe touching art and interacting with it in a physical sense adds a richness to the viewer's experience that cannot be achieved through observation alone.
My paintings develop through experimentation and chance rather than careful planning with unexpected marks and materials shaping the final work.
Future Directions
In the near future, I plan to build more texture and text into my work while continuing to work within a restrained palette.
As an emerging artist, I have the freedom to push and progress my practice in ways that established artists sometimes do not. After all, the art industry is like any other business. Once you find a visual formula that sells, there is pressure to repeat it.
For now, I am enjoying the freedom of not having found that formula yet!
See you on the walls!