Beginnings

I come from a family of creators. In my first blog post I talked about coming from a family of Aboriginal artists. My mum can do many things but she is a quilter and sewer primarily. My sister is a painter. I've always been a sewer, quilter and a beader. Never a painter. At the end of medical school I found myself back at my mum's house with a six week holiday before graduation. I did the long five-day drive from Alice Springs back to Brisbane with dad and realised quickly I had a lot of time on my hands.

My sister had an excess of paint supplies and my mum had this small little room off the laundry where she dyed fabric for art quilts. I decided to give painting a go. 5 years later, I am still painting. The below photo is of my little set-up in mum's dye room where I began to paint. All my small test paintings are there on the desk. Including my first 30x30cm on the easel which is still for sale today.

I knew from the beginning I wanted to paint paintings with texture. I love running my hand along canvas. It's one way that I connect with art. This weekend is DAAF or the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair. I love trawling through stacks of paintings and running my hand over dried paint. To be honest, art should be a tactile experience. I remember mum telling me I was "wasting paint" with this technique. Never! The more tactile the better.

I was originally inspired by drone footage of coastlines and how dramatic the change in colour and landscape can be. I've always loved landscapes but never wanted to be a realist or an impressionist. I wanted to find an abstract way to represent how I saw colour, textures, and lines in nature. That's how I started. The colours in these small paintings where inspired by real drone images of coastlines or horizons but I wanted to develop my own way to represent what I see.

If you look at some my current works, they aren't always inspired by landscapes but my original designs where. I have found over the years my paintings have taken on a style of their own that have become uniquely mine. Sometimes inspired by landscapes.

Sometimes just shapes or patterns.

Or simply colours.

I call this style my original art style. It's still my favourite style to paint. When you compare my early works with my more recent pieces, there has been growth. But I have also begun to play with this style a bit more.

I have played around with keeping the painting flat without texture and added dots.

I have also started to try blending the background colours more and incorporated dot work into the paintings. It's definitely still a work-in-progress but I have done three so far.

Another take on my original style where I have added dots and other linear lines throughout the piece. 

I still have my small original 15x15cm paintings. They remind be of where I started. I still have a long way to go in growing as an artist and I'm enjoying the process. I am finding my current work roster is not allowing me the time to physically paint but I am always thinking and planning and taking small moments to paint when I can. I am looking forward to what the next five years brings.

Thank you for reading,

Jeanie x