I am delighted to share that my artwork Light Between Us has been selected as a finalist in the North Sydney Winter Art Prize 2026.
This piece continues my exploration of Australia's natural landscape through texture, light, and colour. Created with acrylic and texture paste on a wooden panel, Light Between Us invites viewers to pause and appreciate the quiet beauty found in nature and the subtle connections that exist between trees, light, and the people who experience them.
Light Between Us
2026
Acrylic and texture paste on wood
30 × 30 cm
The Winter Art Prize brings together a diverse collection of works by talented artists from across the region. It is an honour to have my work exhibited alongside so many inspiring artists.
Winter Art Prize Exhibition
Venue: North Sydney Community Centre
220 Miller Street, North Sydney NSW
Exhibition Dates:
Friday 3 July – Saturday 4 July 2026
Award Night:
Friday 3 July 2026
Thank you to the North Sydney Community Centre for organising another wonderful exhibition and for supporting artists through this annual prize. I am grateful to be included and look forward to sharing Light Between Us with visitors to the exhibition.
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.
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.
