Dinner Party II

This painting is part of a series of paintings set at parties and other social events. These works invite us to consider the relationships between the subjects. Are they friends or strangers? Lovers? Colleagues? We might imagine jokes and laughter, or flirting and gossip. We can place ourselves in the scene and feel the potential for human connection, happiness, love, the equal potential for anxiety, for misunderstanding, for loneliness. These paintings encourage us to contemplate how we navigate the tension between sociability and our inner selves, the weight of social expectations, the inherent tension between performance and true intimacy.

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I am an emerging artist from Warrnambool, Victoria. I love to paint people and I have a genuine sense of appreciation for the idiosyncrasies and mystery of all individuals. Whether it’s the feeling of loneliness and despair that can sometimes plague each one of us, the joy of connecting at a party, or the comfort of home, my paintings are a celebration of humanity. I'm interested in the things that connect us, narratives that help us make sense of the world. In these increasingly polarised and atomised times I hope that the characters in my paintings can help remind us that we are more alike than we are different.

I've been a finalist in both the Mandorla Art Prize and the Biblio Art Prize and I've exhibited with Bluethumb Art Gallery at the Affordable Art Fair and in the Next Wave Exhibition in Melbourne. My work was recently selected to exhibit in the ACB Selects exhibition in Sydney. I have five children, one husband, and a scruffy old dog — and I live in a very small house on a big block of land.