Study for a Purple Interior

Study for a Purple Interior, 2025, Acrylic and collage on board, 120 x 120 cm

This painting began with a collection of familiar motifs—a Chinese ginger jar, orchids and fragments of interior space. Painted canvas pieces were cut, moved and collaged into place, allowing the composition to develop through experimentation rather than careful planning.
I am interested in the moment when observation gives way to imagination. The result is an interior that feels both familiar and slightly strange, where colour, pattern and form combine to create a space that invites wandering and interpretation.

This work is painted onto custom built cradled timber board, the sides have been painted purple so it is ready to hang unframed, alternatively if you would like to receive this work framed, please select your frame through Bluethumb's framing service at checkout.

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Floriosa is the botanical painting practice of Australian artist Sally Browne.
I've been making art for as long as I can remember. What was meant to be a one-year trip from the UK to Sydney in 1994 somehow became a permanent move, and Australia has been home ever since.
Much of my work begins outdoors. I love wandering through suburban streets noticing flowering trees, plants spilling over fences, unexpected colour combinations and the small details that most of us walk straight past. I often come home with armfuls of flowers, seedpods and odd little cuttings that eventually find their way into my paintings.

Although my work begins with observation, it rarely stays there. A vase of flowers, a flowering gum or a bird perched in the garden might provide the starting point, but colour, memory and imagination soon take over. I'm less interested in painting a particular flower than in capturing the feeling of being surrounded by nature.

Before becoming a full-time artist in 2015, I worked in graphic design, surface pattern and printmaking, experiences that continue to influence my love of colour, rhythm and composition. I'm also inspired by the simplicity and spontaneity of Chinese and Japanese ink painting, though over the years my own work has evolved into a looser, more contemporary style.

Alongside Floriosa, I maintain a contemporary fine art practice under my own name, exhibiting regularly throughout Australia. Over the past decade I've been fortunate to place hundreds of original paintings into private collections both here and overseas. These days, if I'm not in the studio, there's a good chance I'm wandering around Sydney with secateurs in my bag, bringing home flowers, seedpods and whatever else catches my eye.