"Dappled Light Study 1" Painting

As a migrant from the UK to Australia, I feel an incredible sense of gratitude to live here in Sydney. Over the last 25 years I have come to adore the Australian bush, and I feel a very strong connection to the land I inhabit and the nature that surrounds me. My love of the Australian landscape is what inspired me to pick up a paint brush and will continually inspire me for as long as I can make art. As a young child I was always interested in the natural world. My first aspiration was to become a naturalist, along the lines of one of my early heros, Gerald Durrell. I always had a leaning to the sciences, but a strong appreciation of art. I went on to study Natural Sciences for undergrad, and afterwards a PhD in Chemistry. I then worked for 15 years in strategy and change management. In the early 2010s I had the opportunity to explore my lifelong interest in art, learning from inspiring and talented artists. I started painting full-time in 2016. My art practice focuses mainly on landscape and portraiture using a range of methods and media. In portraiture, I particularly focus on interesting and inspiring subjects that I connect with, such as the commission to paint Sydney University’s first female head of Chemistry, Associate Professor Ruth Gall. In 2016 I was selected for the Portia Geach Memorial Award for Portraiture with a portrait of Professor Attila Brungs, FTSE, then Vice Chancellor of UTS, and in 2019 I was selected as a finalist in the Archibald prize with my portrait of Professor Michael McDaniel. This portrait has since been acquired by the University Technology Sydney and hangs in the main foyer of the University. My landscape works focus very strongly on light in the natural world. Working primarily in acrylics, I explore the quiet, transformative moments that occur in familiar environments, those instances where light and atmosphere briefly shift, inviting stillness, reflection, or renewal. I have undertaken many commissions, have had artworks hung in group exhibitions and art prizes and support charitable and community organisations. In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, I held my first solo exhibition 'A Brief Moment in Time' hosted by Brenda Colahan Fine Art in Putney, Sydney. I quickly followed with a second solo exhibtion in 2021, entitled 'Close to Home'. My work is held in private collections in Australia, North America, Europe and Asia.