Parkland Memory

Finalist Queens Wharf Brisbane Art Prize 2025.
When the Roma Street Parkland first opened my husband wanted to see how the site had been developed. It had previously been the Roma Street railyards where carriages, wagons and rail engines were shunted together or separated. My husband had been a shunter there in his late teens and early twenties. He was happy to see how beautiful the area was now and we spent a long time walking over the paths with his reminiscing about the job and his workmates of that era. We visited the park many times. My husband died ten years ago and it has not been until recently that I have been able to paint the feelings I have about him.. The image is not a likeness but rather a symbol of how I experienced being with this worthy and wondrous man and how I wish to recall those special days.

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My earliest memories are of my parents teaching me things to do with my hands. Dad began by showing me letter formation from the age of three, copperplate writing at five years and Plaster of Paris moulding from about six. He would bring home small pots of Dulux paint and with this the Plaster of Paris figures were covered in bright colours. Mum taught me sewing, crochet and knitting. Grandad would have a new box of colour pencils for me on each visit.
On moving to Canberra from Brisbane where I was born, I became interested in oriental brush painting and ceramics. I soon built a raku kiln which was LP gas fired and attended the then Canberra School of Art beginning with fulltime ceramics and moving to Fine Art, majoring in sculpture.
Belonging to four film clubs in Canberra, I became intensely interested in the symbolic film directors like Fellini, Antonioni and Bergman. They greatly influenced my work in that they demonstrated to me how familiar objects from our daily lives could be given a meaning beyond the purely representational.
My work is in various media including oils, mixed media works on paper, drawing in various media and I still reserve time for ceramics. The ceramics are exclusively high temperature , reduction LP gas firings and prefer my pieces to look as if they have been thrown from a volcano rather than looking highly finished.
Sometimes colour exerts a pull and I work in oils on canvas but on other occasions the simplicity of pencil on canvas keeps me occupied for considerable periods.