My work has always been a response to my environment. It is observation based and in the process of working I seek to give greater meaning to the awareness of light which holds great fascination for me. Whether it is natural light in the landscape or light falling on objects, I like to concern myself with what it reveals. Natural light is for me a metaphor for spiritual light.

I really enjoy the inherent elements of line and pattern that I find and use them to create space which for me becomes a metaphor for many things – individual freedom, a celebration of existence and a statement about having ‘passed through’. Landscape, and evidence of human occupation of that landscape, are a constant challenge to me to try to translate into colour and shape which is both fresh and meaningful.

In more recent times I have focussed on the minutiae in the landscape. In my latest work I am using these as metaphor for the notion of “fragility” in all its forms – physical, emotional and environmental. I am intrigued by the way a landscape can appear so hardy and enduring and yet on closer investigation to discover it is really very fragile. I see a parallel with the human condition.

Painting and drawing have been of great importance to me since early childhood and I was encouraged by my parents. My English mother had worked as a calligrapher before she married and my Dutch father had always been interested in the arts, though not a practitioner. Throughout my schooling I knew I was going to be an artist, it was the only thing I wanted to do.

During four years of fulltime art school studies colour became a constant source of excitement and exploration and an introduction to the work of Pierre Bonnard sealed my direction. Over the years of working I have acknowledged a debt to this great artist and continue to do so.

Following my studies I spent time painting and working with Tiwi artists on Bathurst lsland in the Northern Territory. This was a time of shared learning with very positive outcomes. I started a print workshop which went on to become Tiwi Designs. I met my husband while working there and  we started our family. After returning to Western Australia, as well as being a wife, mother and part-time painting teacher with TAFE, I was able to focus again on my own work and hold my first solo exhibition in 1981.

For many years I have worked mainly with mixed media using small marks of soft pastel in pure colours over thinly splashed gouache. Although not really pointillism in the true sense, (because of the use of  coloured underpainting), the process of buiding an image from accumulated marks has paralells.

More recently I have gone back to working on canvas with oils or acrylics. I am currently exploring the idea of making images composed of numerous small images. Some of these are on canvas and some are on wooden panels.