Valentine, Lake Macquarie. Painting

I was born in a small town called West Wyalong in country NSW, Australia. I grew up in Wagga Wagga and moved to Sydney to study Design. I am a professional artist with over 20 years experience painting and selling my own artwork. I started my artistic journey at Bondi Markets in 1994. I sold my first artwork for $5, it was a small pastel sketch of a boy holding a surfboard. I almost fell over and it was all the encouragement I needed to keep going. Over the years I have had several group and solo shows, been invoved with establishing two galleries in Sydney, two book covers and had my originals published as art prints. But it was the girl who bought that little pastel sketch that changed everything for me. My soul found what it was meant to be doing, my Ikigai. I call Canberra home now with my family and menagerie of animals, it is a big messy life and I have a big messy studio to make my art in. Strangely enough I am producing very minimal paintings and collages. Responding to the Canberra landscape.