I was born in Sydney, Australia and, leaving art behind after high school, went on to qualify as a Landscape Architect and Horticulturalist. Finally returning to my first love, painting, my interest in the urban landscape has at times influenced the subject of my work, but it is the graphic, hard-edge painting style that I now employ which has evolved from many years spent creating landscape designs and drawing plans. Wanting a more comprehensive knowledge of art-making, I am currently enrolled in a Bachelor of Fine Art and Visual Culture through Curtain University, which I am two subjects away from completing.

After years of exploring many different styles and techniques, I am now creating a body of work that I feel finally represents my artistic voice. I am interested in dualities; the things we say that are not what we mean or the way we look on the outside which no longer equates to how we feel inside. In my paintings, the concept of duality is portrayed by the connection between past and present and the juxtaposition of traditional techniques with new technology. I am drawn to historical figurative compositions that depict stories from ancient myth and folklore, which I then manipulate and abstract until I find a contemporary way of continuing the narrative. Painting in acrylic paint on aluminium composite board, my paintings are presented in decorative frames in recognition of the historical art convention of beauty and the reverence of art as object.

I now live and work on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia. My paintings have been sold both locally and internationally, and I have been a finalist in the Muswellbrook Art Prize, Manning Gallery Naked and Nude, the Kennedy Art Prize and the Ravenswood Women’s Art Prize, and have had three two-artist shows.

Vanessa Newell - Into the forest I go