Top of Bourke

These vibrant scenes of Melbourne city life are sketched on site, embroidered in thread on recycled papers, collaged with fabric and worked into with other drawing materials. I aim to convey the atmosphere of the moment, my love of Melbourne’s spaces and the city’s unique character and architecture.

These works are developed directly from the pages of my sketchbooks, the original lines drawn onsite. I use freehand machine embroidery on paper to reproduce my spontaneously drawn line, then collage with fabric and recycled papers. Finally I work into the piece with a variety of my favourite drawing materials including pencil, water-soluble crayons, chinagraph, charcoal, oil pastel, ink and gouache.

I am fascinated by the interplay between the ordered structure of the built environment of the city and the ever changing organic flow of humanity travelling through it, bringing light, colour, movement and unpredictability. These ideas are inherent in my making process and as I work on each piece I am constantly striving to find the balance between chaos and order. I aim to provide the viewer with an experiential view of the spaces and to portray the immediacy and atmosphere of a fleeting moment in time and place.

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I was born in Scotland and studied Fine Art at Edinburgh University. I have continued to create and study sculpture, drawing, mixed media & traditional craft forms and have been exhibiting my art in Melbourne since 2007. My art has appeared in many solo and group exhibitions and I have received a number of awards.

For many years now I have been exploring the unique expressive potential of thread as an artistic medium. My thread journey began as I sought to translate my life drawings into textile art pieces using freehand machine embroidery with recycled fabrics. Through these textile artworks I aim to explore the female form and psyche, depicting a woman’s sense of herself and her connection to her world.

Drawing is the foundation of all my artwork and I constantly strive to portray the immediacy and spontaneity of the drawn line in my work. I seek to portray authentic human experience through my own perspective as a woman and explore themes connected to my experience of place, memory & context, my fascination with the human form and anatomy and the metaphor that this provides me for exploring the endless multiple layers that make up the external and internal worlds of our lived experience

In my most recent work I have been following my passion for urban sketching and combining this with my love of mixed media and thread drawing. My Melbourne City Sketch Collection depicts vibrant scenes of this unique city that I have come to call home, sketched on site then transformed into mixed media artworks using freehand machine embroidery, fabric, paper, collage and multiple drawing materials. I aim to provide the viewer with a very experiential view of the spaces I portray: capturing the atmosphere of the moment, my love of Melbourne’s spaces and the city’s unique character and architecture, as well as exploring my own sense of self within these places.

Commissions Welcome!