My body of work, Backyard Ramble, was inspired by the wild bushland that I have grown up with. I always find the bush centres me as I ramble through the disordered beauty of its chaotic colours and unique flora. My intent in using a pointillist, impressionist style in small-scale works was to express the delicate details of colour and light, and the intimacy I feel with nature. The linear curation of my works imposes an element of order within the disorder, as if I’m opening a pathway through the bush, for the audience to ramble visually through my work.

In my body of work I explore the sublime qualities of the beauty of Australia. My work is a dynamic blend of representation and exaggeration, where the natural world is expressed through colours that emphasise the need to redefine our relationship with the land. By distorting reality, my intent is to encourage the viewer to appreciate nature’s power and the beauty of the Australian landscape, but also to create a catalyst for imagination and emotion.

Collision: Fragments of Cobalt explores the misalignment between perceptions of the self and reality. In my body of work, I express my own transcultural experiences to reach a deeper understanding of self and connectivity to culture. The traditional Chinese and Vietnamese motifs pay homage to an integral part of my identity that often collides with the Western world. Ceramic fragments represent the fragility of our internal world, while distorted and dreamlike images represent psychological tension. The monochromatic colour palette is grounded in cobalt blue, referencing traditional porcelain practices.

Frequent family weekend trips to towns outside Sydney, like Bowral in the Southern Highlands, awakened my interest in the architectural landscape as I peered through the windows of antique shops and enjoyed the local award-winning pies in the bakery. My body of work explores how towns rich in personality are losing their own colour by the increased development of homogeneous neighbourhoods. By using materials and physical techniques that are used in construction, like plasterboard and insulating foam, my work expresses the idea of gentrification, with a mid-century colour palette of warm tones representing the passage of time and reminiscences.

My body of work is a set of portraits of family members and myself. It explores the similarities and differences between people and how we express ourselves in our role as an artist or creator. My work represents the connection between our personalities, our craft and our passion for that craft. What we do for enjoyment and what we do to survive are defining parts of our identities and how we are viewed by others. My overall intent is for the audience to be able to gain a sense of each distinct personality and character from these four portraits.

I have grown up in a family of three generations of women, experiencing the giving and receiving of care that transcends boundaries of age and culture. Often, this care is seen in small, mundane gestures of tenderness. Small Tenderness pays tribute to one small and mundane act: the washing of another’s face. My body of work uses the motion of washing to explore the intimate relationships that my mother, my grandmother and I have developed. Soft colours and loose brushwork represent the delicacy of skin, and layers of oil paint express the passage of time across three generations of women.

My body of work explores the current disconnection between people despite the world being in its most connected, globalised state. The pandemic has heightened social disconnection with the need for physical distancing, producing isolation characterised by fear, confusion, discomfort and reflection. Each painting in my work represents the subject in their own world. Though positioned in a cluster, their gazes are never shown to directly meet, remaining averted from both the audience and each other, expressing a sense of detachment from the world around them. Unique brushwork and colour palettes for each work represent the subjectivity of our inner experiences.

My body of work was inspired by the idea that childhood experiences only exist temporarily but simultaneously transcend time through memory. Representing my younger sister at times when she was so absorbed in the wonder of the moment that she was almost enclosed within a world of her own, my work examines the single moments of heightened expression that may act to trigger memories. Each piece expresses a unique story, with the charcoal figures in the background representing how, with the transient nature of memory, some recollections inevitably fade and fragment.

My struggles with anorexia nervosa and body dysmorphia have distorted the way I view my face. My body of work, Dysmorphic Metamorphosis, is a series of grotesque self-portraits that represents the constantly changing perceptions I have of myself; the ‘metamorphosis’ of the disease. The work is intended to be disturbing, but also to express an essence of fantasy and disconcerting beauty, like the exhausting back and forth nature of these disorders. The monstrous nature of my work examines how I visualise myself, but also the deceptions of anorexia.

My body of work was inspired by noticing the absence of visible stars in my environment and how this turns the gaze to the horizon, where street lights shine. This long stretch of continuous lights is represented in the length of my work. The details and placement of the lights are purposeful expressions of the reference photos I took.