Growing up in Victoria’s Ocean Grove, a small coastal town nestled at the foot of the Bellarine Peninsula, I was no stranger to the salty air and freshness of the Australian ocean. Many of my days as a child were spent on the sandy shores of the local beaches, splashing in the sea.

My childhood love and connection with the natural world was nourished by the most amazing family trips across this vast and inspiring continent. We explored everything from turquoise colours of the shorelines to the aboriginal drawings and red earth of Uluru – all different facets that make up Australia’s diverse visual identity.

My paintings are strongly influenced by my childhood and early adolescence. As a child I was forever daydreaming about different worlds, especially worlds beneath the ocean’s surface. I loved seeing this world in colour and really feeling these colours within my soul.

The random, unpredictable swirls of coral shapes and hues drift through my inner creative thoughts and onto canvas – they capture what little worlds and pockets of the ocean might look like. The abstract fluidity of the coral and water is depicted through the curves in the acrylic and layers of colour build the worlds that I imagine. The organic shapes of the coral envelope and caress each other, coalescing harmoniously to create a magical structure of reef.