Adopted from China in 2002 aged 10, and with very little English, I struggled to fit in and understand this new world, my feelings, and what was going on around me in my now home-town of Melbourne. Then, when I began to paint in 2017, I discovered it was painting that gave me access to those feelings. A studio was set up in the garage, and I’d disappear into my art for hours. I was immediately drawn to my first culture, especially ancient China and the richness of the Imperial Palace. I explored ideas of feminine beauty, the ornate head dresses and the decorative details of costumes. This was the theme of my first Solo Exhibition ‘Adorned’ in 2019. These first works were acrylic.
Then Covid hit and the planned 2020 Exhibition halted. Waiting. Waiting. Art prizes all but disappeared and momentum slowed. I was home with time on my hands, so I turned to the online world to study techniques and learn more about the arts world. During those Covid years I taught myself to paint with oils, loving the slower more meditative state it required. I refined my figurative art and began to incorporate jewellery and fabric to create 3D multi-media work, skills I’d learned in my Diploma of Fashion Design and Technology.
My recent acrylic abstracts reflect my love of flowers and nature, and especially the celestial world. Colour is the thing. My abstract work is less design, more discovery. Spontaneous. I begin with the blank canvas. Just the look of it stretched and waiting for whatever happens is what spurs me on. My Chinese faces in oil sometimes form a part of these abstracts, and reflect my ongoing search for belonging, identity and calm, in a somewhat bewildering world. Meanwhile the ideas keep coming.