Artist's Statement

 

I have always enjoyed painting and drawing. I attended TAFE when I was in my early 20s to learn more about my own ability. I came away with a love for art but this was only the start of my artistic adventure. After spending a year in Niger, West Africa teaching art to years 1-12 at a mission school, I returned to Australia with a strong desire to go to university and improve my understanding and skill. In 2004 I graduated with a BA Arts (Painting) from Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. I continued with honing my skills through sketching, watercolour painting and working with polymer clay until I was in a position more recently to focus much of my time solely on oil painting. For the last two years I have been able to put in many more brush miles and can finally say that my art these days is more about what I’m painting than how I’m painting.

 

Every one of us travels differently along their life-long journey, some at a slower pace than others. I have always had an interest in the idea of ‘journey’ and the lessons we learn along the way. A natural perfectionist, over the years I have had to learn to stop over thinking and start allowing myself to loosen up to record what I see through paint. This is an ongoing part of my journey.

 

Stories and storytelling have become central to the work that I do. For me, my art must have a reason, a heart and an aim and these begin with the story behind the work. Without stories, records, archives and data would be nothing more than bland scratches made on a page and human beings, nothing more than figures on a canvas. Through my art, I love to draw in the viewer by allowing them to interpret the journey they see. Even though the images are my own response to my own journey in life, each of us are connected through experiences and emotions.

 

My journey portrait series is just beginning. This is an attempt to capture moments along an individual’s journey. My landscape work focuses on roads and pathways and where they take us.

 

I am influenced by history, particularly by the stories within the bigger story, the relationships people had and how this shaped them. I love the Australian impressionists, particularly Arthur Streeton and am also a great admirer of Rembrandt, Turner and Rockwell.

 

I find that my style swings between loose and impressionistic to more formal, smooth and finished, depending on the subject matter.