ABOUT ME

I grew up in the Riverina, a vast agricultural region of southern New South Wales, on a farm surrounded by rice, wheat and barley crops, sheep, big skies and the ever-changing colours of the Australian landscape. Much of my childhood was also spent along the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, a landscape that became part of the way I saw and experienced the world.

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Art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. No matter what else has changed, creating has been the one consistent love in my life, something that keeps me grounded, gives me somewhere to disappear for a while, and has carried me through some of the harder chapters too.

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That early love of art eventually took me to Bendigo, Victoria, where I studied visual arts, exploring painting, life drawing, drawing, sculpture and photography. Working across different disciplines gave me the freedom to experiment and explore different ways of seeing, something that continues to shape the way I create today.

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These days I call Cannon Valley in the Whitsundays home. It’s a pretty extraordinary place to live and create, with the Great Barrier Reef on my doorstep, while just inland the landscape gives way to sugar cane, farming country and mountains. That contrast between coast and country, and the colour, light and life that comes with it, is a constant source of inspiration.

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I’m endlessly drawn to colour, light and the details we sometimes overlook. Inspiration can come from the Australian landscape, something botanical, the character of a person I meet, or simply looking closely at an ordinary subject and finding something extraordinary in it.

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My work doesn’t sit neatly within one style. Sometimes it’s botanical, sometimes a detailed study, and sometimes it begins with nothing more than colour, curiosity and the freedom to see where it goes. I think creative growth is an important part of being an artist, allowing the work to change as I do.

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I’m happiest when I’m creating, particularly in those moments when one idea unlocks another and the work begins to unfold organically. There’s a point where you stop trying to control the outcome and simply follow where the painting wants to go.

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That’s where the magic happens.