The Lovers Hide in the Garden

Artist Statement: The lovers hide in the garden and steal secret time together

This work is oil and acrylic on 76 X 92cm on Luca Premium Professional Canvas, stretched onto a kiln dried frame, wired ready to hang, signed on the front and sent with an artist cv and certificate of authenticity.

All my work is sealed with a Conservationist Varnish. The conservationist quality varnish means that you can wipe the painting free of dust with a damp cloth, if you need to, which will preserve its life.

This work is sent ready to hang but without an exterior frame (images are to give an idea of what it would look like with an exterior frame). I have mainly used a white frame in the images, which is unusual for me but I just felt a black frame was too heavy and natural timber frame was too depleting for such a happy work. If you would like to see it in a black frame please message me and I'll send you an image.

All works are painted on the sides (see image) so if hung stretched without an exterior frame it will still look lovely from any angle (no ugly white sides). So you don't have to add an exterior frame if you don't want to.

Please measure your space. I can't emphasize this enough. I try to make the images representative but they aren't a replacement for measuring your own space. Artists pay for the postage and it is very expensive to send work out so please check your space for size.

This work will be sent via Australia Post

Follow

This profile is for Robbi Neals paintings. For Printed works please go to Robbi Printed Works

Robbi Neal is a best selling award winning artist and author. She lives in Ballarat and trained at the Victorian CNeal ollege of the Arts and on finishing Art School won the Footscray Aquisition Prize twice. In 2020 after regularly exhibiting her work in solo shows, raising 5 children, surviving aggressive cancer and just generally letting life get in the way of her own goals she was able to return to full time to painting and writing.
In 2020 she was a finalist in the Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award. In 2021 she was a finalist in the 66th Blake Prize and in 2022 the Ravenswood Prize for Women Artists.
In 2024 she was a finalist in the prestigious Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing and in 2025 was shortlisted in the Lethbridge Landscape Prize. Most recently she is a finalist int he 2026 The Doyles Prize. Her latest book 'With Winter Comes Darkness' won the prestigious Daphne Du Maurier Kiss of Death Prize 2025 in USA and Canada.

Robbi has a studio in Ballarat, surrounded by the flora that works its way into her painting. You can find out more about Robbi online through her site.

"Robbi's work explores themes of belonging, memory, and deep connection to Country. Through evocative, layered storytelling, Robbi reflects on place, identity, and the enduring ties between land and spirit and love and community. Her paintings are both personal and universal—offering quiet meditations on home, heritage, and the rhythms of the natural world. Celebrated for their ability to weave narrative and image, Robbi continues to create work that speaks to the heart of connection, belonging and care for Country."- Giorgio Pilla, Redot Gallery Singapore.

Robbi has mixed racial heritage. She is painfully shy, she says she is a hermit. It took her a year to put a photo of herself on her profile that shows her face. She has always suffered from depression which she blames on a childhood rotten enough to write a best selling award winning book about. Sometimes the more miserable she feels the brighter her paintings get as she believes that looking for joy in small things is where we find god. She says her works are her voice and are landscapes grounded in her grandmother’s Country but are also emotional landscapes about connection and belonging and finding the small things in life that are easy to miss but give our lives true meaning and happiness. Robbi loves to explore different ways of creating art, through works on paper and painting on canvas.

.Some of Robbi's shortlisting in major prizes:

Lethbridge Landscape Prize, Shortlisted 2025

Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing, Finalist 2024

Bluethumbs top seller placing 4th

Lethbridge Small Scale Arts Award, Finalist 2022

Lethbridge Landscape Prize Salon De Refuses` Finalist 2022

Ravenswood Art Prize for Women - Finalist 2022

Footscray Acquisition Prize - Two times winner

Lethbridge Small Scale Art Award - Four times short listed

The 66th Blake Prize - Finalist

Exhibitions have been held in Redot Gallery Singapore, Art Atrium Sydney, Casula Powerhouse Sydney,  Perry Prize Sydney, ROAR Melbourne, Rhumbarella’s Melbourne, Castlemaine Fringe, Lethbridge Gallery Brisbane, Footscray Gallery and Latrobe University Gallery.