Painting

Influenced by my heritage, my body of work uses watercolour to represent the weathered beauty of Croatian towns, the stories they tell and the society they help define. I particularly love these townscapes with their ordinariness enriched through colour, stonework and ornate details. My grandparents came from a humble Croatian background and my intention was to convey to the audience the common structures that shaped, and were shaped by, the lives of ordinary people. Homes and communal spaces remind us that history lies not only in grand monuments but also in everyday buildings that communicate the resilience of ordinary people.

The intention of my body of work was to invite the audience to love the unloved. It is a close study of types of life that are often misunderstood, and represents a counterargument to the categorisation of these aspects of the natural world as 'insignificant' and 'unfavoured'. I was inspired by the artist Annette Messager whose work examines the interplay between the human and the monstrous.

My body of work investigates the concept of artistic representation and how the roles of the artist, artwork and audience are shaped by sociocultural change and our desire to communicate our ever- changing world. I reference the self-reflexive, meta-artwork Las meninas by Velázquez, which places the artist in the work, to represent a contemporary audience, positioning the audience as participants in the artwork itself. My intention is to create a dynamic conversation about the role of the observer, challenging traditional notions of artistic authority and interpretation that arise when a work is left solely to audience speculation.

In a society that idolises flawless youth, my body of work represents the vibrancy and unapologetic characteristics of elderly women, challenging the myth that a woman's 'prime' is tied to smooth skin and conventionally youthful beauty. Focusing on lived-in skin and self-expression, my intention was to celebrate ageing in women as a form of liberation that comes with letting go of societal expectations, where age is not a decline but an elevation into a more colourful, authentic version of the self. Skin is not something which needs to be 'corrected' but is an expression of experience, emotion and living.

My body of work connects me to my identity as a Samoan, Lebanese and Australian girl. The work contains a range of erratic and unpredictable brush strokes, using acrylic paints, boar bristle paint brushes, pallet knife and impasto. I incorporate the deliberate use of the body, including hands and palms, with the intention of representing my emotional state or energy at the moment of creation.

My body of work represents my family as I see them, examining the emotions, relationships, and shared experiences that shape us. Each portrait conveys moments of joy, conflict and connection, while my own image holding a camera communicates my role as both observer and storyteller. This work invites audiences to consider how identity is shaped not only by what is on show, but by what we choose to see.

My body of work examines the fragility and beauty of nature. Using natural materials, layered textures and abstracted landscape forms I represent how delicate the environment is. Inspired by Australian artists, I document my process with the intention of encouraging audiences to understand my ideas and to connect with the changing natural world.

Rooms of the Artist's Earthly Plane is a triptych examining both my personal journey and the broader human experience. Inspired by mythology and history, my body of work investigates the impacts of concepts of faith, death, afterlife and judgement while commenting on modern issues such as the rise of generative AI. My intention in incorporating symbols, literary and artistic references and personal allusions was to encourage the audience's inherent curiosity, discovering details and making their own interpretation about the underlying meaning. The work itself sustained smoke damage from a fire, giving it a yellowed and aged appearance.

My body of work is a series of paintings inspired by 17th century Dutch still-life paintings and Sam Leach's practice of using AI to generate compositions that are then painted in a traditional manner. In the period known as the Dutch Golden Age, paintings featuring the material richness of everyday life were popular. They illustrated the society of the time as being filled with lavish flowers and luxury goods, but the compositions carried deeper symbolic meanings. Life's Impermanence represents items traditionally seen in those works then progresses slowly to items that are more contemporary and familiar to modern day society.

My body of work examines the interplay between doubt, ambition and transformation. How we grapple with our uncertainties is like the concept of inertia - an object at rest remains at rest, an object in motion stays in motion. We dream of lofty goals that, like the sky, seem impossible to reach yet remain beautiful to behold. In my work the red surface represents doubt, which must be navigated to achieve aspirations. My intention in this work is to convey how change is necessary to reach our goals, and to remain mindful of the passions we risk losing while pursuing dreams.

In my body of work, I investigate the tension between the primal and the constructed, using teeth as a central motif to convey a raw form of aggression and vulnerability. Teeth are markers of what is animal within us. The nuances of my concept developed from the very act of repetitively and methodically painting teeth, gum and fur; this revealed to me the recurring anatomical structures between vastly different animals. By juxtaposing these natural forms with human inventions, my intention is to examine society's discomfort with the body's natural state and the compulsion to restrain or 'civilise' what is innate.