"I love painting silly serious books, junky ads, and silly drawings.
I have a long history of collecting words, phrases and objects and gadgets of our consumer culture. In 1991, I completed a suite of etchings and lithographs as part of my Bachelor of Education in Visual Arts that was inspired by car and panty liner advertising and chockas full of related text and lingo. I also started work as a ticket writer and fell in love with type, layout and the look of words. I kept making art and wondering how it all sat with my graphic, illustrative tendency and love of advertising and consumerism...Mr Warhol, Ms Kalmain, was that you I spotted in Smith st? Why did I walk past you guys....?
I now have a Masters in Fine Art from Monash University where I completed a too large 3 metre square drawing called Power Moai Buns 'n' Thighs (shown at Nellie Castan Gallery in 2008) and a dissertation in lovely yellow binding titled 'Love my Leafblower, Worship my Spartan Sports Power Tower: The Art of Synthetic Ecologies' Given that my Honours year thesis (1999) at Victorian College of the Arts was titled 'Too much Stuff: Where does it come from and What to do with it', I have realised after many years of fluffy business that I love long silly titles and words as much as images.
From1999-2009, I immersed myself in tight drawings of chinoiserie and suburban motifs (for which I was lucky enough to get several art prizes), Recently I have worked my darned little sockettes off to bring illustration, design, language, and text to the fore in my art making and illustration practice.
I am very excited to have been invited tocreate a work for the 50K National Artist's Self Portraiture exhibition at the University of Queensland, and super smiley to announce that the University of Queensland has just purchased this gouache assemblage.
My work is in the following collections: The National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Grafton Regional Gallery, Melbourne University,
La Trobe University, SBS at Federation Square, City of Yarra, City of Banyule, MLC, and Kedumba Contemporary Drawing collection, NSW, The University of Queensland,"
