Comforts of home

If you follow any of my social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram, you've probably noticed a lot of blue and white lately. Last month I was busy getting ready for a group exhibition at the Aspire Gallery in Brisbane's Paddington. The theme was 'comforts of home' and I took it as an opportunity to resurrect some old ways of working as wall as learning some new skills. 

Having spent a significant portion of my life traveling I was interested in exploring what images might represent home when I've had so many different ones. I decided to narrow it down the most recent few cities, adopting a very homely subject of chintz fabric, patchwork and china plates.

Using different floral and bird motifs I created individual artworks to represent a home city and country. The passion fruit to me is Brisbane, Sydney the frangipani, London a rose and Wellington a Kawhai. The birds are a Rainbow Lorikeet for Australia, Wren for England and Tui for New Zealand.

Using antique illustrations as a starting point I recreated the flowers and birds from security envelope lining, then grouped them together to form a chintz 'fabric' pattern. It was my first attempt at making a repeatable pattern and is definitely something I'd like to try again.

I printed the pattern in large format then cut it into piece along with more security envelope lining to create a large paper patchwork. I then went back to the individual floral images and created blue and white china plate designs. It was nice to go back to working with porcelain again, something I used to use a lot in my NZ gallery. This time rather than hand painting I was able to transfer my designs directly from the printer onto the plates. There are also limited edition prints of these pieces on lovely glossy paper.

You can see the real things at the Aspire Gallery until 20th August at 53 Kennedy Terrace, Paddington. Limited edition prints are available on the website.