Welcome!
Hello! I feel like I have been an artist all my life. I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa to two beautifully creative humans, who gifted me with a yearning for knowledge, beauty and truth. When I was nine years old, my family travelled through Europe, on a kind of 'lets see everything' pilgrimage, I fell in love, so deeply, with art and the rest as they say.. is history.
Now based on the land of the Worimi people, in New South Wales, Australia, I make art, I draw and paint, study, research and explore the recipes and techniques once used by artists throughout the centuries. Sometimes feeling more like a chef than a modern day painter, I work with deliciously luscious ingredients..eggs, vodka, walnuts, pomegranates..and more. Every day in the studio is an exhilarating learning experience, as I explore the chemistry, the botanics of painting and turn it into new art.
The drawings for the prints are all done with botanical inks that I have made in the studio, based on recipes from around the world using natural ingredients. I use the traditional dip-pen to do the drawings as I have found there is much more control and surprises to be had with the technique. Once the drawings become prints, I add the faux gold-leaf, these are metals made to be just like that made by gold-beaters of many centuries ago, so the colour, brightness, glow and feel is the same without using precious resources.
With the world changing so fast and the loss of nature on a global scale - it just inspires me to cherish all the beauty and diversity that we have and to work harder to become more sustainable and share everything I can. I know you love nature too and I'm so grateful for your love and support.
What a wonderful & precious world!
Vanessa xx
[When painting the faces of young persons... use the yolk of the egg of a city hen, because they have lighter yolks than those of country hens]
Cennino Cennini
15th Century Treatise on Painting
[Colours and other materials, when not furnished by monks were provided by the Apothecary]
Sir Charles Eastlake 1847
Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters