I am a full-time professional artist, living and working in a small coastal town in England. Since a child, I have always drawn and painted and although they recognised talent at my school it was not considered the 'normal' thing to go on to university.

“What inspired you”, again, is the the crux of my artistic struggle and I’m still sorting through it! I do recall the first ‘sculptural’ thing I ever made. It was in Mrs. Pets’ 7th grade art class. We were experimenting with papier mâché. I was nudged to make something highly specific: a seed-like form, painted red on the outside, like an apple but more like a pomegranate seed, and inside was to be a long stairway leading to a special city with lots of tall, silver skyscrapers. I was inspired to call it, “The Apple Island”, and it stood in our school’s foyer display cabinet next to popsicle stick houses and painted rock paper weights for the rest of the year as an object of curiosity.

My name is Gabriella Wyke and I am a 26-year-old freelance photographer and the owner of recently established, Gifts from Gab Studios Limited- an art-based company that provides various creative solutions such as photography, videography, graphic design and much more.

Music takes a very important part in my career as an artist. I love listening to many beautiful songs and symphonies, and I find it amusing to title my artwork after these compositions. I used to play the guitar before, but I ceased any music-making in favour of creating fine art.

My name is Stephanie Garner and I am an Australian contemporary visual artist based in Victoria. I received my BCA Honours in 2016 from Deakin University and later completed my Masters of Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne in 2020. My practice explores themes of environmentalism, femininity and mysticism in the varied mediums of painting, photography, drawing and collage.

I am a Mexican artist and Art Therapist. My career as an Art Therapist proved to me that by engaging in the expressive arts I could safely explore memories, alleviate distress and be mindful. Art has always been part of my life since I was a child, it is a safe and soothing space that gives me an opportunity to constantly reflect upon my emotional experiences.

I’ve been a creative person my whole life and my career has seen many iterations of that creativity. I started training as an architect before moving to art school and studying graphics. In my career, I’ve been a copywriter, graphic designer, storyboard artist, illustrator and illustration lecturer. But through it all, I was always drawing and painting. When this love of the human form collided with my fascination for the artists and craftsmen from the stone age I  started on my current path – to express primaeval human experience through the majesty of rock! 

The first time I used oil paint was in my Undergraduate Degree. I appreciate oil paint for its malleability and lustrous quality. It allows for the artist to utilize many different techniques of application; it provides a slower dry time and the ability to rework the surface over time. I vividly remember our mentor using a cloth to remove oil from the canvas to create highlights for the image. I had only used acrylic before that, so I was captivated by the possibilities of oils. I have spent years trying to master different means of application.

Colour is definitely the main focus of my work. So much can be conveyed through colour. I mix my colour palettes very intuitively. That means my colour palettes changed primarily based on what I’m feeling. I will also use colour in more of the traditional landscape sense–green for land, blue for the sky, etc. I play around with a lot of warm & cool colour shifts as a way to create a composition in my work. I do this also with saturation, so the paintings will have a “glow” in them. 

Years ago (late 1980’s I think), my old roommate came home with this enormous book on John Singer Sargent. I was mesmerized by how Sargent could convey so much information with such few marks on the canvas. That week I put together my first large canvas, picked up some oil paints and a “How to Paint in Oils” book and painted my first Sargent inspired painting for my living room.

It took me almost three decades to begin my life as an artist. The threads were there all along, from my artist grandmother permitting me, a toddler, to splash around messy paints in her basement, to being told during my yearly graphic design scholarship review that I should consider a career as a fine artist. I did almost anything to subconsciously avoid the inevitable truth that I was an artist.

I think one of the main things I have learnt so far as an artist is to ultimately create dialogue, not only between the audience and myself but also between the audience themselves. For example, the crumpled landscape composition invites interpretation and aims to create discomfort and hopefully, insight. This insight could lead to a shift in perspective and then, behaviour.

I love different kinds of photography, but to be able to create something from my imagination is what really excites me. I find that going beyond the boundaries of reality is what best allows me to translate feelings and concepts into a visual story.

I want to inspire a sense of wonder, and for my viewers to develop stories about what they’re seeing.  Fantasy has always been important to me, whether it be in the form of movies, books, or games.  There are so many stressful things going on in our lives, especially recently, and fantasies can allow us to take a break, relax a bit, and recharge ourselves.  Sometimes we lose sight of the more enjoyable parts of life when we’re too focused on the frustrating ones.

I am Sripriya Mozumdar, an ex-marketing professional turned self-taught artist, based in Mumbai, India. While I have always been drawn to art since childhood; my academic and professional backgrounds led me to marketing communications and to a busy corporate life. Becoming a mother forced a sabbatical and gave me the opportunity to chase my true calling and my work today as a full-time artist.

My wife was my inspiration. I had started to get back into painting with acrylics but was taking almost a year to complete a single painting. At the same time, my wife had discovered pastel and was creating amazing photorealistic paintings in a fraction of the time. So one day, I decided to give pastel a try and the rest is history!

I’m a shameless daydreamer and quite the adventurous soul. I have an endless curiosity to explore the natural world and beyond. My work is an exploration of my own curiosity for the strange and unknown, for what doesn’t exist in this reality and for the darker parts of myself. I aspire to ignite the viewer’s curiosity for the magic in the world and whisk them away to a place less ordinary.

The opportunity to nourish my creative spirit came once our children grew. My wonderful husband said ‘take a break for a year and do what your heart desires (well not quite those words but you get the idea) and I did just that.  As my youngest child entered school, I set myself up at home and began to experiment and create for as many hours as mothering would allow.  A ‘years break’ turned into my full-time passion for painting.

I like the sense of longevity that I associate with paintings. I am representing ordinary people within their everyday lives, and I feel that recreating a single moment with paint elevates that moment.

In 2008, I discovered sculpture, modeling characters coming from pop art and fantasy culture. But it is in 2013-2015, by interacting with several professional sculptors, that sculpting took a new dimension in my life. It became a real passion, which drove me into pathways and adventures constantly renewed.