About NINA …
Most of my working life was in publishing, and for much of that time it was a matter of working with words. But I was also a graphic designer back in the late 1980s, early ’90s. I wasn’t a bad designer, but I never considered I had any ability at all when it came to illustrating or painting.
The catalyst for my desire to change that came a couple of decades later, in the form of a photograph in a weekend newspaper. The image was mostly green and evocatively misty; there was a rustic old homestead in the left foreground, with a man on horseback riding alongside an old wooden fence that extended from the house.
Looking at that photo I could see a really beautiful painting – a watercolour – one I thought I’d like to paint myself. Therein lay my problem. I couldn’t paint!
Next step: the decision to take some lessons! Midway through 2011, I joined a small and eclectic group of warm and equally motivated people who, throughout the years, have given me as much joy as I’ve found in painting itself. And yes, I did eventually paint that wonderful landscape when I felt I could do it at least a little justice (because despite displaying no talent when I began, I sensed I would make progress if I persevered, and I wanted to persevere).
A year or two after starting these classes (with Vicki Ratcliff, in Mona Vale), I knew I wanted/needed to break away from the subject of the week and venture out on my own path. Initially this led me to the bulging photo albums on my sagging bookshelves – lovingly created on my return from adventures near and far over the past thirty-plus years. What I found on that path as I relived past times, brush in hand, was a very personal and inexplicable love for painting, a love that has only strengthened in the years since.
I made my way to Vicki’s studio for classes over many years (in fact until she stopped teaching), because those friendships, which are a big part of what I love about painting, were always there.
It was 2019 when I made the decision to focus entirely on my painting.
Many artists will tell you that one of the hardest parts of the ‘job’ is writing their artist’s statement, and despite all the years I’ve worked with words, I’m no different. They’re a peculiar thing, those statements. I’m sure Van Gogh never had to write one!
For me, it seems a near impossible thing to articulate a meaning or message for my work, because I’m not sure there is one. It certainly has no political or dark undertones. Matisse is quoted as saying, ‘What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.’
You may feel a connection with what I’ve painted - a shared experience or perhaps an inexplicable personal response. You may like it, or you may not; you may see some skill in it, or you may wonder what makes me think I have any talent at all. But it doesn’t matter, because what I most love about painting is the joy it brings me. It takes me away. It’s that simple.
about the pawprint…
The final touch on most paintings is an artist’s mark, usually their name or some adaptation of that name.
Behind my name when I finish a painting is an embossing – a pawprint. It looks a bit like a flower, which I love, but it’s Cujo’s pawprint.
Cujo was my first dog, a beautiful Golden Retriever who died (aged only six and a half) in 2009.
Heartbroken and wanting to have something of him to keep with me, always, I had an embossing tool made from an image of his pawprint, one that he and I had created some years earlier. It can be hard to see, but it’s there!
