Originally from Canada, Philippa arrived in Australia in 1987 as a singer and songwriter. She began travel sketching in 2019 and quickly too to watercolours, acrylics and oils, finding in painting a new language for the same instinct that drove her music.
Despite having no formal art training until 2023, Philippa has honed her skills through short courses and workshops with esteemed artists such as Jessica Ashton, Fiona Lowry, and Petra Pinn.
In 2023, she started taking art classes at the North Shore School of Art with Mike Lamble and her artwork blossomed – selling 6 artworks in 3 months and being a finalist in 2024 in the Doyles, the Australian Artists Collective, Hunters Hill Art Prize, Northern Beaches Art Prize, Aspire Gallery Art Prize, and in 2025 in the Art to Art Unearthed Art Prize, the Mosman Rowers Art Prize, and the inaugural Lifeline Art Exhibition. Her first exhibition stand was at The Other Art Fair May 2025 at the White Bay Cruise Terminal. Her first solo exhibition was at Art Gallery on Darling February 2026. Also, in 2026 she has been a finalist in Hunters Hill Art Prize, Aspire Gallery’s Little Features, North Sydney Community Winter Art Prize, and Art With Heart Art Exhibition.
What she has said about her work is “each artwork inspires me to capture not just what I see when I behold nature’s glory, but what I feel: that beautiful tension between knowing we can never fully comprehend such wonder, yet being unable to stop ourselves from seeking and aspiring to understand the mystery and majesty of it all. I hope my artworks resonate with people the way it does with me. I feel so blessed to be able to create on canvas the inspiration from within.”
Her artistic journey is a testament to the power of creativity and the timeless appeal of ocean-inspired art.