Combining historical and contemporary oil painting techniques Penelope creates striking images that explore the nature of opposites.
The calm meets the chaotic, the premeditated is interrupted by the spontaneous and the past coexists alongside the present. Realism and abstraction are merged in new and harmonious compositions.
These “beautiful imperfections” take inspiration from eroding frescoes, peeling billboards and crumbling classical sculptures. Penelope strives to emulate the accidental aesthetic that the uninhibited hand of nature and time achieves.
Employing a wet on wet technique of painting Penelope uses a palette knife and brushwork
to fully exploit the pliable and gooey viscosity of her medium. Her aim is to elicit a visceral response from the viewer through the dynamism of her mark making and use of vibrant colour.
Since graduating from a fine arts degree in 1992 Penelope has been painting and exhibiting prolifically. She has staged solo shows in a variety of different venues from cafes and artists run spaces to established commercial galleries in both Melbourne and Sydney.
Penelope has been a finalist in numerous significant art prizes including the Portia Geach portrait prize, Salon de Refuses, the Fletcher Jones Art Prize, La Trobe University Acquisitive Art Prize and the Mornington Peninsula National works on Paper prize. Her work is also held in many public and private collections including Artbank, IBM and the Australian Catholic University.
She has painted a number of portrait commissions most notably two images of the the Virgin Mary, one of which resides in a chapel in the Yarra Valley.