Shopping Bag Painting

I was born in Melbourne but grew up in Zimbabwe on a tobacco farm. After attending Bath Academy of Art in England I completed my honours degree in Fine Art in 2009 with the University of South Africa (UNISA). I have now gone full circle and returned to Melbourne to live and practise my art. The art stage here is very alive with so much happening - it is a hugely inspirational city. I work mainly in oil on canvas focusing on contemporary Still Life. My paintings are meditative – both as process and as product. The concept of meditation is to slow things down, and that is my aim; to slow down the viewer’s eye, to share the experience that everyday objects become transfigured when looked at closely. The emphasis in my work is not on the physicality of the objects themselves – there is no conscious intention of implying deeper symbolic meaning, but more of cultivating an awareness of the enigma that things exist. The visual world has always had a hypnotic effect on me, so it is only natural that an atmospheric kind of realism has eventually become my language of expression. An appreciation of the sustained power of observation is my mantra. I recently completed a years residency at Caritas Christi culminating in an exhibition at St. Vincents in Melbourne. Prior exhibitions include ALPOA at Artspace in Berlin, Unity and Diversity in Hyderabad, and Apocalypse at the Johannesburg Art Fair. My work is in the permanent collections of UNISA and SASOL in South Africa, and St Vincents in Melbourne.