Location: Australia
‘I like to explore both figurative and landscape painting and more recently portrait painting. I am interested in depicting people going about everyday life etc, but I like to explore what lies below the surface of life, the motivations that propel people on in their lives or the emotions and the world of imagination that the landscape around us evokes.’
Heather originally trained as an Art Teacher at the National Art School in Sydney where she majored in painting and drawing. Heather uses a variety of media, particularly
collage, acrylic oil and pastel painting. She is a Fellow of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts
Numerous awards include being a finalist in the McLaren Vale Art Prize as part of the Fleurieu Biennale in 2002 and winner of the ‘Works on Paper’ section of the 2003 Art Exhibition at the Royal Adelaide Show. She was a prize winner at the Flagstaff Hill Rotary Art Exhibition in April 2012. She has had work published in Australian Artist Magazine.
I like to call my landscapes 'interpretive realisim'. I'm not into creating a photographic representation but to bring out something of the spirit of the landscape and the emotions it evokes. The Australian landscape has a distinctive and unique feel which I try to portray.
Having lived a lot of my life in near Sydney harbourside, the exciting chaos of that city and it's wonderful harbour is infectious
We went for a walk on a wintery, blowy day. The sun was shinong through dark clouds and lighting up the landscape in such an unusual and dramatic way, I had to paint it!
I was lucky enough to visit Amsterdam recently where I spent hours looking at the paintings of Rembrandt. I, like so many others, am inspired by the simple humanity that he is able to portray in his portraits. I guess that is what I aim to bring out in my portraits. I'm not so keen on the 'photo-realist ' approach which seems fashionable right now. I like a more expressive approach.