"I have always been fascinated with tonally realistic portrait painting and the practice of using visually decorative nature within artists’ works. In many paintings, artists use natural themes to present emotion and ideas; I wanted to bring both my love for portraiture and nature together, but I wanted it to be something more, this is where I eventually came up with the concept of surrealism and feminine portraiture. Originally, I was going to move away from nature and explore surreal elements within portraiture, however my work always ended up circling back to what I loved, nature. I investigated and was influenced by artists like Aykut Aydogdu, Daria Callie and mainly Miho Hirano. Her oil painting work inspired me with the distinct soft feminine quality of her subjects. By studying her style, I constantly questioned how I could combine the elements of surrealism and feminine portraiture to meet my desired theme and concept."

Voting for the 2022 Credit Union SA Community Award is now closed.