About

Simone is an artist who has run an e-bike business from home for the past 14 years while raising three children and loves most things about living in the “People’s Republic of O’connor” (Inner North, Canberra). Simone graduated with an MBA (Strategic Operations Management) from Charles Stuart University a long time ago and a BA in Visual Arts (Painting) from the Australian National University a very, very, long, long time ago.

Contrary to the view of some recent Australian Governments, Simone believes her time at Art School was instrumental in making her an innovative, useful and engaged member of society and not just a functionary of the economic system. 

Artist’s Statement

There are couple of underlying, reoccurring and interrelated themes that inform my art practice and bubble to the surface of my paintings (both implicitly or explicitly) from time to time.
The first of these themes is the idea of ‘desire lines’. In urban and transport planning ‘desire lines’ refer to the unofficial paths that collective feet make through the landscape over time. These well-trodden paths are both subversive, being illicit, and conversely, the path of least resistance. Desire Lines are paths that form themselves and are evidence of both humanity and the impact of humans in the environment.
Secondly, I use the landscape, and elements within the landscape, to explore what I’m thinking about ‘in the moment’. The moment (or muse) can include an emotion or idea, such as gratitude to a friend or joy in life’s journey.
Often, the inspiration for a painting, is a personal reaction to the zeitgeist and current bigger picture concerns. Many of my paintings juxtapose ‘natural’ elements such as trees, grass, light, shadow and sky with formed, mostly suburban and domestic structures, such as roads, houses and paths. This is both for allegoric or symbolic, as well as, aesthetic reasons. A road sign or writing on a road (or the road itself) can be aesthetically pleasing itself, or as a contrast to a moody sky, or symbolic of something else. Likewise a moody sky might be symbolic of deeper emotions or just aesthetically beautiful or somewhat ambiguously, both.
A third related theme is an interest in, and love of exercise, and being outdoors.
I regularly visit Canberra’s nature parks and reserves and in 2022, I started going to Trig Points more methodically and using these journeys, to extend the desire lines theme, both literally and as a subject of my art practice. Trig Points are the structures that mark the highest place on a hill or mountain. There are over 100 Trig Points spread across the ACT, 88 of which are accessible to the public. I love that in some cultures, 88 is a magic, lucky number so taking the time to go to all 88 seemed like a good idea at the time. Some of these Trig Points are easy to find; a 30-minute stroll along a well-trodden, well-known suburban path. However, some of these points, like the high points in life’s journey, are less easy to navigate. All require active travel, an act of rebellion against the status quo, in the form of self-propulsion. At some point in the journey to a Trig Point, you must step away from the car and run, walk or ride a bike. I wanted to see where these journeys would take me and what they might inspire, in me, to paint.
Finally related to all of the above, it’s impossible to paint landscapes, or places or people (in fact anything) without having some awareness in and reaction to climate change and our role in it, so as inferred above, this is also a frequently occurring theme throughout my paintings.
I hope my paintings inspire others to actively explore the world around them, as well as their relationship to it.
For the most part, the images on this website are accompanied by text from my Facebook posts to friends and family, as this helps ground the paintings in ‘the moment’ for which the works were created and may go some way to communicating the ideas behind the images. While context is important to me personally, I also hope that people can find their own meaning in the works or just enjoy the paintings from a visual perspective. 

Selected exhibitions

Solo shows

2023 Triggered: Highpoints in a year’s journey around the ACT. The Link, Ginninderry

2022 Desired Lines,
        The Gathering Place,
        Dickson