Following my career as an advertising art director and graphic designer, I moved to Port Macquarie from Sydney in 2011 to devote more time to painting watercolours, a passion which began when I was eleven years old.

Living on what is one of Australia’s most beautiful coastlines, I am constantly inspired by its wonderful scenery, as I am by the beautiful nature of the unique Australian bush.

I’ve always painted in watercolour, preferring to work solely in its purest, translucent form. As such, it is a challenging medium, as frustrating as it can be rewarding, and hard to master. The sequence of washes takes planning to retain the transparency of colours and the whites of the paper. Yet, to achieve a work that is fresh and spontaneous, it requires striking a balance between trying to control the combinations of water, pigment and paper and allowing this wonderfully unpredictable medium to have its own way.

My aim is that a painting should be emotive and evocative, engage the viewer, be powerful in its simplicity and representation, and appear effortless. Over the years I’ve developed my own style – graphic compositions, and broad washes with a minimum of brushstrokes, capturing the essence of what I am seeing rather than its detail. An important aspect of my paintings is mood and atmosphere, and our great southern land’s dramatic skies.

In the last 9 years I’ve won 38 prizes including 2 Best in Exhibition and 15 First prizes.