About the Artist:
Johanna Larkin is an award-winning visual artist living in the Perth hills in Western Australia. Johanna is best known for her vibrant, realistic wildlife paintings and her calm, realistic still life paintings. Johanna's still life paintings have been described as having a sense of calm and simplicity with their limited colour palette and uncluttered composition. Johanna states that her still life paintings are inspired by the old Masters, incorporating many of the techniques including using under-paintings and layers of glazes to evoke a sense of calm and depth to her paintings.
Johanna will be studying at the Florence Academy of Art in 2023 to further her understanding of the ways of the Old Masters.
Johanna's Story:
Johanna was born in the Netherlands and raised in Melbourne Australia before moving to Perth in her 30’s. She was fortunate to have an uneventful early childhood before losing her mother at age 11 and was estranged from her father by age 13. Johanna's early thrust into adulthood left little time to explore her hidden talents or abilities. It was not until her late 40’s that Johanna picked up a paintbrush for the first time. Several weeks later and armed with a set of professional paints Johanna painted her 4th painting which subsequently sold within 15 minutes of being uploaded to an online art gallery (bluethumb.com.au).
Johanna has since continued to work on commission items and on original paintings to ensure her collectors have new pieces of work available for purchase. Due to high demand, Johanna commenced making fine art prints on canvas and paper so as to make her work available and affordable to a wider audience without compromising her original pieces.
Since embarking on her art career, Johanna has discovered a long history of artists in her family in the Netherlands. This might explain her inherent ability and passion for what she does and Johanna's interest in the Old Masters method of painting.