‘The Secret Garden’ collection is a colourful celebration of those precious curated spaces we call gardens and all the wonderful flowers that populate them. I saw a correlation between creating a garden and my own art practice. Both bring pleasure and joy. They require hard work, patience and curiosity, plus your hands are bound to get a little dirty.

 

Take a look behind the scenes of my latest collection 'The Secret Garden'. Inspiration, sketches, works in progress and studio mess!

The Surf Coast Arts Trail is back for 2024! This will be my 8th year doing the trail and it is one of my favourite weekends of the year. It's such a lovely way to connect with my students and collectors as well as the local creative community.

Yes, it's a little quiet around here. It's not usually the case, however, I'm on maternity leave! I'm taking a few months off to soak up newborn snuggles with my second bub. It's such a precious time and you know, sleep deprivation is a killer! I plan to ease on back into things later in the year.

I have so many fond memories of visiting the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne as a kid. My family would go and see the ducks, have picnics and roll around in the autumn leaves. We'd explore every nook and cranny of the gardens, it was always a highlight from a day trip to big city.

I don't often share any of the commercial or design work that I do anymore, in fact a lot of you may not realise that I once had a career as a graphic designer and art director! I only occasionally take on a project these days but this one was hard to resist.

I am thrilled to have been invited to participate in the 2024 Feastival Art Exhibition at Falls Creek alongside Alison Percy and David Rosendale.

Feastival is Falls Creek's annual festival, a 3-day feast of Music, Art, Comedy, and Food, in the pristine Alpine environment of North-East Victoria. It is a ticketed event, pick up your tickets or check out the complete program here.

 

I'm so thrilled to bring you my first new series for 2024. It was a bit of a surprise one, definitely unplanned! But that is how these things go sometimes. I was simply so blown away by the beauty of the Larapuna / Bay of Fires area I couldn't resist painting up a storm.

I have been to Lutruwita / Tasmania many times. Holidays in my childhood, solo explorations of the Tasman Peninsula in my early 30s, obligatory trips to MONA, even a babymoon in a campervan from Hobart to Freycinet. It's one of the first places I think of when I get the opportunity to book a holiday. I had never been to the north east though! Wowee, it is spectacular. I thought I'd share some of the amazing locations and sites we saw.

These artist books are too good not to have their own blog post! They are one of the main outcomes of a recent art retreat to Lutruwita / Tasmania held at Enclave Tasmania. I proposed at the beginning of the retreat that each student come up with a concept for their book, paint and assemble it all within the retreat. My brief to them was a collation of their inspiration, memories or experience of their time in Tassie. The excitement was real!

What a way to kick off 2024. I feel very fortunate to be given the opportunity to teach at an art retreat. It was something I've never done before and was super excited by the prospect of working closely with students over 5 days. Not to mention be surrounded by exquisite landscapes!