My newest artwork, What the Red Caps Hide: Lime Bloom, was SOLD at the 50x50 Exhibition at Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne.
This tree portrait is inspired by the extraordinary flowers and seed capsules of Eucalyptus macrandra. The vivid red nut caps seem to guard a surprise beneath them: luminous lime-green blossoms that transform the tree into an explosion of colour.
What the Red Caps Hide: Lime Bloom
2026
Acrylic and texture paste on wood
50 × 50 cm
📍 Brunswick Street Gallery
Level 1 & 2, 322 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy VIC 3065
🗓 Exhibition: 20 June – 3 July
🥂 Opening Night: Friday 26 June, 6–9 pm
🕙 Open Tue–Sat 10am–5pm | Sun 11am–4pm | Closed Mondays
Still time to see the 2026 Fifty Squared Art Prize — Australia’s largest open-call exhibition for wall-based works (50×50cm and under), featuring over 900 artworks. So much incredible work in one space — a true snapshot of contemporary practice.
My Master of Design (Hon.) at COFA, UNSW focused on one question: How can we improve children’s engagement with printed materials to support better learning outcomes? My research shows that the more areas of the brain engaged in processing information, the stronger the memorisation and recall. I explored how to activate as many of these pathways as possible — story for narrative memory, colour for emotional response, sound and action for sensory cues, spatial awareness for orientation, and visual coding for recognition. In short: designing visuals that teach, entertain, and stay in a child’s memory. But my journey with children’s design began long before my Master’s. Over the years, I’ve illustrated several children’s books and created my own comic book about the adventures of a Ukrainian boy in Australia — writing 20 stories and drawing all of the comic illustrations myself. These projects shaped my understanding of how we see, learn, and connect with visual narratives — a foundation that continues to guide my work today.
During the Rooted in Nature exhibition, I ran two small, intimate workshops focused on observing nature through different lenses. The first workshop explored trees from a distance — their shapes, rhythm, and presence in the landscape. The second shifted to a close-up study of eucalypt blooms, celebrating detail, texture, and colour. Working with texture paste and acrylic, we built layered, expressive surfaces full of energy. I keep my groups small to allow for a more personal approach, and although everyone followed the same process, each artwork turned out completely different. There is something truly magical about creating inside an exhibition space. Being surrounded by artworks and artists in the act of making seems to boost creativity and confidence — the energy is contagious. Both groups did an incredible job, and I’m genuinely proud of the results and the courage they brought to their work.
