A Studio Residency & Quite a few Commissions
2025 · Richard Randall Studio Residency · Brisbane
Early in 2025 I was fortunate enough to spend some time in the Richard Randall Studio near the Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens and Brisbane Planetarium, a perfect combination for my recent work in plant sentience and explorations into the possible histories of the universe.
Most of 2025 was taken up with commissioned work, and then I donated a painting to a charitable event, which led to a highly inspirational meeting and a wonderful new portrait commission!
The Richard Randall Studio is a purpose-built studio run by the Brisbane City Council, and I got to meet quite a few new people who were enjoying the peaceful surrounds. Many thanks to everyone who visited!
A Year of Commissions — The Sleeper
Sleeper
Acrylic on Canvas, 2025
122 x 122cm
In truth, the Sleep series grew out of my childhood memories, with the imagination of a child I was watching my mother sleeping on the couch, and there seemed to be a shadow floating around her eyes. I imagined that it was her dreams or her soul moving around, temporarily not constrained to her physical self. That's what I love about the Sleep paintings, they portray us in our most open and honest state, unfettered by ego, or persona.
The sleep series began in 2015. I was working as a deep tissue masseur for physical performers and one of my clients sent me a message saying that she'd “…love to see what she looks like through the eyes of my paintbrush." Asher Bowen-Saunders turned up after a day of working as a ‘living statue' and as she was tired, I suggested that she just have a snooze, as I've always been fascinated with sleep, and here I am, a decade later!
Some progress photos over the six months or so that I painted this Sleeper commission. The multiple images develop as the sleeper rolls about in their sleep, the composition and colours come out of conversations with them. I love doing commissioned works, as they are always very personal to the client.
In this case the client was greatly drawn to a work she had seen in the Intersections exhibition that we had in 2024, and after some thought, decided that she would rather have a painting created specifically for her and her home.
Portraiture & Commission
Michael Myer
Acrylic on Canvas, 2025
71 x 91.5cm
Kindness begets kindness. There are some idioms which are mere cliches, and others which are worth living by. True kindness doesn't come from what we hope to gain by kind action, but as a gift given from your true heart. Sometimes however, an act of compassionate love returns its weight a hundredfold.
I was asked to donate a painting to support the Women’s Legal Service Queensland in a charity auction held in August, 2025. Their work is something that is dear to my heart, so I was very happy to donate a painting to them! I wasn't to know the chain of events which would unfold from the donation of my painting, Band of Gold - Since you've been gone.
Band of Gold - Since You've been gone
Acrylic and Gold Leaf on Canvas, 2020
152 x 102cm
The painting was bought by Vanessa Myer, who after visiting my studio, commissioned me to paint a portrait of her husband, Michael Myer, an Australian businessman who has always created businesses which align with his personal philosophy of compassion and desire to create positive change. At present he is developing green energy sources.
Even before I met Michael, I was taken by the openness he shows in the photos that Vanessa gave me as reference photos, to familiarise myself with him before we started. He had a certain unguarded emotional clarity in the way the photos seemed to catch him, mid-sentence or thought. He was looking lovingly at his wife, taking the photos, so perhaps that was the key. However when we did meet, I found that in conversation and in exchanging ideas, that openness was fully present and engaging.
Through his portrait, I wanted to express the way his kind soul beams out of him. I know that both he and Vanessa adore the painting, so I guess that it does.
The Scent of Roses
The Struggle with Darkness
Acrylic on hand-crafted circular board, 2024
70cm dia
Roses have been a recurring theme in my work over the last thirty years. The Struggle with Darkness was instigated by a friend who gave me five beautiful, deep red roses a couple of months before an exhibition; I became so entranced by the way the colour and light of the flower seemed to be battling with the bloom’s velvety darkness that I had to try and tell its story.
Several people were greatly drawn to the roses in the ensuing 2024 exhibition, Intersections, at Field Trip Gallery, and asked to have paintings created specifically for their homes. Again, this was quite beautiful to me, because everyone has a different relationship to flowers and their meanings, so it was a real joy to create personalised works for them.
Toward The Path
Almost as a continuance of the journey that started with me gifting my painting to the Women's Legal Service and painting Michael Myer, late 2025 brought an extraordinary and inspirational journey to Japan, immediately followed by a period of illness and recovery that would become the raw material for the 2026 solo exhibition The Path at Field Trip Gallery, Paddington. Periods of enforced reflection can sometimes bring forth the deepest of beauty.