ABOUT JODY

Hi, I am Jody…. I am a self-taught artist who was born on Stradbroke Island where I spent my childhood living free to explore the Island with my sisters and all the aboriginal & local children.

This is where I developed my love for the Aboriginal people, ocean, beaches and the amazement of nature’s colours from sunsets, sunrises, changing colours of the waters, its abundance of ocean creatures & Australian wildlife.

Every day living on the island was an adventure, a lesson and a danger as a young confident child who never considered what could happen. Island life as kids was all about the adventure of friends being together to discover what nature's playground had to offer us. My memories of living life on the Island were one big playground from climbing the most amazing trees, having bluebottle and jellyfish fights just to see who had the worst stings, eating & catching crabs, oysters, fish, sharks, and stingrays to the danger of swimming the strongest tides to the lessons & stories our elders taught us.

Obsessed with art from an early age I started drawing eyes, lips, hands, friends, horses, trees anything I could fill my sketchbook with. Winning my first colouring competition at school gave me the confidence to start showing others my creative side. This developed into requests for commissions, starting with my first paid commissions sketching for a Racehorse trainer of his first-place wins with the jockey & racehorse passing the winning post on race day. I illustrated a recipe book with pencil sketches to suit each recipe from the family’s secret collection.

Being surrounded by the ocean & then moving to Byron Bay as an adult my love for art exploded. All my paintings have some sort of “life” connections, be they “characterful” people or animals. The majority of my paintings have a subject with eyes as the focal point, which shows the personality & feeling, to tell the story. I love experimenting with a variety of mediums, my favourite medium is acrylic paints on canvas.

While spending every day painting during the COVID lockdown it was a perfect opportunity to isolate myself in my studio & experiment with different mediums and subjects & turn my passion into a full-time art gig. Finally finding time to indulge in my passion for painting, I am influenced by my love for the ocean where I go to recharge.

My art is a positive reminder of just how lucky I am to live in the small coastal community, where I am surrounded by the ocean, Mother Nature & the forever-changing beauty of colours which is reflected in my art.

Art enhances value in our lives by relaxing us & increasing our moods & feelings. Art adds life & beauty to our homes, places of work, cafes, city streets, churches and places of society. I just love being covered in paint, challenging myself with different subjects to create something unique, and then watching it evolve on the canvas.My art process starts with: I have a brilliant idea, this is terrible, I should paint over it and start again, to just keep layering. Then OMG this is SWEETAZ, I love it, which turns into a feel-good piece which I am always sad to finish as I just love it!

All my art is made with love and I wish to share this feeling through the vision of my creations.I tell myself every day: “Just keep going, you got this, as all good things take time!”

Jody