My studio is a garden.

An overgrown tangle of influences where I plant my ideas, my feelings and experiences; digging around (fumbling around) and watching things grow.

For seven years my studio space has been in an old milk packing warehouse overlooking a weeded-over train line. Fifteen minutes drive away from home. This seven years was a time of extroversion – exhibitions, open studios, classes and sharing space with fellow artists.

But lately, the artistic journey has taken me underground. It’s been a time of looking at the core elements of my practice. Who am I as an artist? What are my goals, intentions, values? And how can I align my art practice more deeply, and more harmoniously with the other aspects of my life?

From this time of reflection, a new studio has been born!

After months of planning, saving and negotiating, I now have a beautiful wooden studio next to my home dedicated to my art practice.

Yes, a dream manifested.

New soil to cultivate.

I can’t wait to see what will grow!

With a mixture of anxiety, vulnerability, relief and exhaustion, the Belles-Lettres exhibition has been hung (hanged?), opened and blessed by a wonderful crowd of well wishers. The work that I am presenting is a collection of mixed media experimental pieces that, at their core, reflect my process over the past year of rediscovering a playfulness in my practice after nearly four years of academic study.

Collage has become an important method for me to engage my creative self and I really enjoy exploring different approaches to it. These works explore the integration of collage into layers of resin. The installation itself is also a collage; of my work with those of Nathalie Verdejo. Nat similarly works in a process based way, using plaster with embedded mixed media.

The Northern Rivers Community Gallery is a beautiful space, provided by the Ballina Shire Council. There are four rooms so four exhibitions are presented over each four week period. In the large room is Steve Waller with a magnificent exhibition of contemporary drawings:

Steve presents a mix of hyper-realistic drawings and abstracts. Shocking, intriguing and a world unto themselves.

In the other rooms, Amanda Bromfield exhibits Rococo inspired ceramics and Imbi Davidson exhibits dynamic landscape inspired paintings.