Welcome to the art of Grace BeerThis is a little bit about me and about my past and present art practice. 'What is an art practice?' you say. Well, the short answer (and I'm sure the brief one is the one most readers prefer) is: It is what you do when you are consciously and deliberately being an artist.
I am one of a set of nine siblings (five sisters and four brothers), all children of an Anglican Minister. My growing up years were spent in country New South Wales and Victoria; then, when I was fifteen years old, the family moved to Melbourne. These days I am blessed to live on a country property in north-east Victoria. My studio looks across a wide valley to a line of hills which are part of The Great Divide – truly a most beautiful view. |
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After finishing my secondary schooling at MacRobertson Girls’ High School in South Melbourne, I went on to study for Social Work at Melbourne University. For about twenty years I worked professionally as a Social Worker and Counsellor. More recently I gained further qualifications and provided therapy for children using an approach called Expressive Therapies, by means of which I was able to use that key feature of good art practice, playful creativity.
Some of the inspiration for my visual art practice has come from contact with other cultures - whilst living in Papua New Guinea for two years and from travel overseas; the landscapes, the history and the people have fascinated me. However, the Australian landscape, its scenery, fauna and flora, has been the most enduring source of my images, the source I return to over and over again.
Since childhood, art has been an interest and a passion for me, from drawing portraits of family members and friends to sketching scenes in PNG and producing small oil paintings whilst keeping up maternal duties as my children were growing up. Encouragement along the way has come from a number of sources, beginning with gifts of oil paints and brushes from my father when I was a child and later watercolour classes from a warm and insightful teacher Yolande Calkoen, whose primary message was painting from the heart.
My world view informs my art practice, and 'The Artist's Way', written by Julia Cameron, has influenced the approach I take to my work. At its foundation, this approach comes from the belief that the creative work I do is in response to the Great Creator, who has given me creative gifts which crave expression. My passion and joy is to make visible, in some way, the invisible qualities which play out in our world; whoever has eyes to see perceives more than the material, the physical. This leads me to make some art works utilising a symbolic style.
I paint mainly in watercolour, draw in a variety of media, and enjoy trying out new approaches – hence my recent and evolving ventures in cut paper work.
Some of the inspiration for my visual art practice has come from contact with other cultures - whilst living in Papua New Guinea for two years and from travel overseas; the landscapes, the history and the people have fascinated me. However, the Australian landscape, its scenery, fauna and flora, has been the most enduring source of my images, the source I return to over and over again.
Since childhood, art has been an interest and a passion for me, from drawing portraits of family members and friends to sketching scenes in PNG and producing small oil paintings whilst keeping up maternal duties as my children were growing up. Encouragement along the way has come from a number of sources, beginning with gifts of oil paints and brushes from my father when I was a child and later watercolour classes from a warm and insightful teacher Yolande Calkoen, whose primary message was painting from the heart.
My world view informs my art practice, and 'The Artist's Way', written by Julia Cameron, has influenced the approach I take to my work. At its foundation, this approach comes from the belief that the creative work I do is in response to the Great Creator, who has given me creative gifts which crave expression. My passion and joy is to make visible, in some way, the invisible qualities which play out in our world; whoever has eyes to see perceives more than the material, the physical. This leads me to make some art works utilising a symbolic style.
I paint mainly in watercolour, draw in a variety of media, and enjoy trying out new approaches – hence my recent and evolving ventures in cut paper work.