A Brief History

I am a figurative fine artist from Brisbane, Australia.

After completing a science degree in 2005 (BSc (Genetics) University of Queensland) and contemplating a career in research science, I committed fully to pursuing art. I continued a classically leaning arts education and practise begun much earlier, while continuing to work in construction to pay the bills, and ended up completing a carpentry apprenticeship.  

In 2009 I was involved with starting an Atelier style art school in Brisbane, Australia, and began teaching traditional drawing, painting and sculpting skills.

In 2012 I won the highly contested A.M.E. Bale Travelling Scholarship, Australia’s largest national prize for developing the careers of traditional representational artists. This allowed me to visit many of the major art museums in Europe and the US, and to study with important contemporary figurative artists. This further convinced me of the relevance of Renaissance thinking and aesthetics to navigating the 21st century.

After winning the Lethbridge 10,000 Small Works prize in 2016, I began regular solo shows with Lethbridge Gallery in Brisbane, Australia. Also in 2016, I was cofounder for The International Arts and Culture Group (TIAC Group), an education startup based in Florence, Italy with links to China and Spain, that has served as a hub for a variety of workshops and exhibitions involving some of the world's best figurative artists.

Post-pandemic I am focussed on my artwork, research and writing about aesthetic philosophy and art practise, and teaching regular workshops about drawing, anatomy and composition.  

About

I am predominantly known for my oil paintings, but I use a range of traditional drawing, painting and sculpting media as well as digital counterparts to these (such as Zbrush, Unreal Engine, Adobe Medium (VR sculpting) and 3D printing).  I see plastic composition rather than any particular media as the core of the classical ethos of generating meaning with the plastic arrangement of form at the core.

I am inspired by the living, gestural qualities of the figure and landscape, and my work is driven by the desire to transmit this felt experience through the concretisation in physical media.  I love the paradox of these elusive qualities becoming fixed for contemplation.  This most often translates into a rhythmic and calligraphic interpretation, as well as a spatial exaggeration. Viewers sometimes describe this as feeling like the static image is in motion.

This impulse towards a felt sense of aliveness is coupled to an interest in depth psychology. For pioneer psychologist Jung and others in this field, the mysteries of the unconscious are claimed to drive us, and must be made conscious if we are to become more healthy and less destructive to ourselves and others.  I think this is behind my fascination with Surrealism and Symbolism, both of which tug at the threads of parts of our psyche that are secret even from ourselves.

As well as symbolic objects common to mythology, many visual phenomena provide building blocks for the transmission of subtle psychological qualities, and I use use a variety of atmospheric, light and spatial effects, as well as geometric forms such as semi transparent cubes, planes, and more organic lines wrapping around forms and entering space to explore this elusive territory.  The psychological effects of these forms are quite mysterious to me.

And so both these factors – the desire to make concrete the elusive living force of a subject, and an interest in the psychological implications of symbolism, interact in my process of composition to make invisible qualities manifest.

Exhibitions and Awards

2025 Art Renewal Centre Salon Honorable Mention in landscape category, Staff Award in Imaginative Realism category

2024 “Doors through the Ordinary” Solo show at Lethbridge Gallery 

2023 “Shifting Sands” Solo show at Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington, Brisbane 

2023 Art Renewal Centre Salon (staff award)

2022 “Confessions” Solo show at Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington, Brisbane 

2022 “Interconnected” Group exhibition curated by Beautiful Bizarre magazine, hosted by NERAM (New England Regional Art Museum) 

2021 Nominated as a “Fellow” of Royal Queensland Art Society

2021 “Anthropomorphisms” Solo show at Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington, Brisbane 

2021 Responses to Jack Lister’s “Still Life” choreography, part of Three by Australasian Dance Collective - displayed at QPAC (Queensland Performing Arts Complex, Southbank) 

2020-2021 “Eros: your body as an excuse” Group show at MEAM, Barcelona (The European Museum of Modern Art) 

2021 “Art of Imagination” Competition, Royal Queensland Art Society (First prize for “Undiscovered”)

2020 “The Shape of the Sky” Solo Show, Lethbridge Gallery, Paddington, Brisbane  

2019 Brisbane Portrait Prize (Finalist)

2019 “Timeless” Gallery IX Group Show

2018 World Wide Kitsch Painting Competition (First Prize for “The Sea Has Many Voices”) 

2018 “Whispered Ocean Hymns” Solo Show, Lethbridge Gallery, Brisbane 

2018 “Connection” 49th Brisbane Grammar School Art Show, Brisbane, Australia (Feature Artist with others)

2017 “Self Portrait” Florence, Italy (group show in conjunction with Odd Nerdrum)

2017 "Evolve" 48th Brisbane Grammar School Art Show, Brisbane, Australia (Feature Artist)

2017 "Paths to the Half Remembered" Solo show, Lethbridge Gallery 

2017 "Murallas Molinos" Madrid, Spain (group show in conjunction with Antonio Lopez-Garcia)

2017 "Beyond Skills" Alcoy, Spain (group show in conjunction with Golucho)

2016 "Punto Critico" Florence, Italy (group show)

2016 "Beyond Skills: Golucho and Chinese Artists Exhibitions" Florence, Italy

2016 Queensland Figurative Competition (Highly Commended for "Orpheus") 

2016 Lethbridge 10,000 (First Prize for "Inland Sea")

2016 Harold and Agnes Richardson Memorial Drawing Prize (First Prize for "An Echo of Space")

2014 "Journeys West" Exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery, NSW

2012 Winner of A.M.E. Bale Travelling Art Scholarship (Melbourne)

2012 "The Julian Ashton Connection" Royal Queensland Art Society, Brisbane

2011 Sculptors Queensland Annual Exhibition (Chalkos Fine Art Foundry Art Prize, and Peoples' Choice Prize)

2010-2011 "Evolving Traditions" Group Art Exhibition at Redcliffe City Art Gallery, Redcliffe

Teaching/ Residency

2023 & 24 Workshops in life drawing for The Enduring Design Masterclass for the School of Architecture, University of Queensland  

2020-24 Teaching classical life drawing, anatomy and compositional design courses at the Royal Queensland Art Society, Brisbane studios.

2015-24 Life Drawing and Painting workshop delivered to students of Clayfield College, Brisbane, entering Senior

2022 Workshop in life drawing for Queensland Art Teachers Association (professional development)

2022 Workshops in life drawing and composition for students of Brisbane Grammar School

2010-16 Teacher at Atelier Art Classes, Salisbury

2015 Life drawing and Figure Anatomy (simplified Ecorche) for students of ICACEA workshops, Florence

2012 Still life painting workshop at Queensland Art Gallery, for gallery members in conjunction with the "Portrait of Spain: Masterpieces from the Prado" exhibition

2011 Workshop with year 8 and 9 students from Dakabin State High School during development of a mural at Queensland Rail's Dakabin train station

2010 Artist in Residence at Brisbane Grammar School 

2009, 2010 Teacher at Brisbane Artists' Academe

2009 Artist in Residence at Sculptors Qld 

Commissions Enquiry