I felt honoured to be selected for the 2002 Top Arts exhibition. I exhibited a piece called ‘Sad Painting’ (mixed media on found board) and my sketchbooks were also displayed.
After secondary school, I studied printmaking at the Victorian College of Arts from 2002 to 2004. In 2005, I spent the year making etchings and printing at the Australian Print Workshop, and in 2006 I received the Collie Print Trust Scholarship. In 2006, I completed my Honors in Printmaking at RMIT.
Influenced by the process of making images in printmaking, and by my lifelong love of drawing and painting of scenes and stories, my work slowly took on a more illustrative style. In order to explore the commercial world of illustration, I moved to London in 2008 and completed a Masters in Illustration at the Camberwell College of Arts.
Returning to Melbourne in 2009, I continued my fine art practice and have branched into the world of commercial and children’s book illustration, finding that the two mediums informed each other nicely.
In 2010 I co-founded Schoolhouse Studios at the old vine-covered, red-brick St Joseph’s school in Abbotsford. I worked in a lofty second-floor former classroom that overlooked the Sophia Mundi prep room and gardens. Schoolhouse Studios was a wonderful and dreamy place to work and the buildings and interactions within the grounds with fellow artists continue to inform my work today.
Prior to the demolition of Schoolhouse Studios in early 2014, I co-curated a two-week, site-wide exhibition on the site. Place of Assembly was included in the Melbourne International Arts Festival. This was a great achievement for us, and something I will always look back on proudly.
My prints are stocked at Port Jackson Press, Printmaker Gallery, both in Melbourne, and Smart Art in Adelaide, and I am represented by Art2Muse Gallery in Sydney and The Art Shop and Gallery in Abergavenny Wales.
My baby son, Archer, was born in May last year and I’m now working on a series of paintings and prints of domestic interiors inspired by American folk art compositions and the French impressionists. Witnessing Archer encounter this big new world is definitely having an impact on my work too!
It is nice to think back on my art career over the last decade and think that my first major exhibition was at the National Gallery of Victoria and what a proud moment that was for me. I am sure it has definitely helped spur me on to continue my life-long creative practice.