STAY
upcoming

A small release for Michael Reid Galleries Northern Beaches. Available MAY 2025

In 2024, I was invited to stay at a far away little cabin in the Western Wilds of Tasmania: to paint. It was the first time I have been able to immerse myself in a creative reverie, uninterrupted, for a couple of days. In a way, it was an awakening - a gentle call to pause, notice, and dwell in the small, beautiful moments that shape our spaces and our days. This small collection started there.

Each painting in this series is a still breath to watch and listen; where florals and fruit become storytellers of place. Through them, I explore how living things shift the energy of a space, how they soften the air, hold the light, and bring a sense of welcome and presence. Long, slender hellebore stems in a bottle, a posy of everlastings in a vase, a trio of lemons basking in sunlight—these are not just arrangements, but emotional markers, sensory portals. They ask: Where are you? What time of day is it? Can you feel the sun, hear the quiet, see the shadows dancing in the breeze? What exists just beyond the edge of the canvas? Where are you?

My background in design and photographic styling informs how I interpret space, light, and form. But my work is ultimately grounded in a desire to capture feeling—how it feels to be in a particular room, at a particular hour, with the light just so. The palette is soft and muted, the brushwork gentle, sometimes blurred, echoing the ephemeral quality of memory.

Each painting is named after a musical form—Prelude, Minuet, Serenade, Rondo, Adagio, Nocturne—a nod to the way rhythm and movement shape both music and the dance of light and objects in a room. These pieces are compositions, too: tonal, emotional, and quietly orchestrated.

In painting these works, I thought often about how much botanicals, fruit, and natural objects to bring life into our homes. How their presence punctuates the space and makes it feel lived-in, loved, and welcoming. There’s a kind of essential joy in their being. And through that joy, they tether us to something grounding, beautiful, and alive.

STAY is about lingering a little longer. About what we notice when we do.