Painting is my first love — and after more than two decades away, I have returned to it with new eyes and a grateful heart.
During the years I was away, my creativity did not disappear — it found other avenues. I devoted myself to motherhood and have two inspiring, incredibly creative teenagers. That journey, alongside my vocation as a doula and childbirth educator, placed me at the centre of the most profound human experiences — birth, vulnerability, connection, and transformation.
In the last two years, I have been on a journey of discovery — discovering what moves me, discovering how to paint again, and pushing against the boundaries I need to cross to grow as an artist.
I am a self-taught painter working primarily in oils, alongside graphite drawing. My work spans landscape, still life, and portraiture. I am a representational artist who works instinctively in a realist style, but I am pushing myself by exploring impressionism — a paradox that fascinates me. Where realism demands precision and control, impressionism asks for thoughtfulness expressed through looseness. I swing between these two approaches, allowing each subject to reveal its own language.
At the heart of my work is a pursuit of the light that shines out of everything — those fleeting moments of magic in daily life. The glow on the horizon. The reflection in an eye. The luminosity of a piece of fruit. Simply put, I paint things I see as beautiful.
Those years witnessing the raw intimacy of human life have shaped the way I see, and they are the reason my practice is moving towards figurative work and themes of human connection, intimacy, grief, and belonging. I am still in the early stages of translating these territories into visual language — this is work in progress.
In the studio, my greatest challenge is not always technical — it is mental. I work alongside a loud and persistent inner critic, one I have had to learn to paint through rather than wait for it to quieten. I am learning to love the process of painting itself, not just the result.
I chose to open my studio at this unfinished stage of my journey because of my daughters. I wanted them to see me doing the thing that scared me — to show them that creativity does not require perfection or permission, only courage and a willingness to begin. If you have quietly set your own creativity aside, this is my invitation to you. Start small. Be gentle with yourself. Start again.