I was born in Broken Hill and grew up in the outback. My family was very conservative as we owned a business in town and as with small towns you are expected at all times to represent your family and always behave in an appropriate manner, everyone is watching you ALL of the time.
So to cope with that lot, I moved to Adelaide to study Fashion design at 18. It was the 80's and punk was king, the city offered me a wonderful anonymity and I embraced the fashion and movement of the day. It was liberating.
My love of fashion design was motivated from falling in love with drawing the human body in motion and catching the movement of the fabric when drawing a catwalk model.
However the first part of the course was practical sewing and pattern making, and I quickly grew tired of sewing A-line Calico skirts and thought my head may explode if I made even one more A-lined pattern, so I gave up fashion design and art altogether and did not revisit art until I was 36 years old.
I have to admit I am a colour addict and love the interplay of colours against each other. I love the vibrancy and the way colours pop when you get it just right.
My work is mostly landscapes, I delight in capturing highlights that allow the viewer to engage with my work and to recognise landmarks as I like to include as many as possible. I love to include quirky characters and items and as with real life, the more ridiculous the better.
I am sometimes motivated to work from a more abstract field, however this is most often when I have a need to delight in the combination of colours on canvas without a picture to distract from the effect.
My philosophy, life is short, it can be great or it can be shit. Try to focus on the good stuff. Sometimes an alternate reality is a wonderful thing. I embrace that concept fully. My paintings are of the way I see places, the way they are in my head, the way they should be.
We have moved around the country a lot and have lived in NSW, SA, VIC, QLD and WA. This has been such a wonderful benefit for someone who likes to paint what they have seen and where they have been.
I hope you enjoy my page.
Cheers
Anne Ah Gee
