Shack Life, 2025

Painting my life and telling my story is my current inspiration. I look around and paint what I am connected to. Sometimes it is the daffodil I grew in my garden. Sometimes it is the moments I observe in the sleepy shack town that is my second home. Through my experiences I hope I can connect with others who recognise themselves in my paintings or give insight into a different way of life that at times is fading fast. This painting, ‘Shack Life’ shows a normal scene from my summer holidays, lived a thousand times over. Our old, galvanized iron shack with Barnie the dog observing the goings-on, a discarded boogie board waiting to be washed, the sudden ray of sunlight through a break in the clouds as a storm rolls in.

Louise is a traditional realist painter. Her art practice began in earnest when she left her 10-year career as a scientist to pursue her ever-present passion for drawing and painting. She pursed full-time artistic training at the Grand Central Atelier in New York under the direction of Jacob Collins.

Her work is shown with Hill Smith Art Advisory, Michael Reid Southern Highlands, and Collins Galleries in the USA. She has been a finalist in several art competitions including the Kennedy Prize 2025, Lester Prize 2023, AME Bale Travelling Scholarship 2022, Calleen Art Award 2019, and Doug Moran Portrait Prize 2018.

Louise’s studio is located in the Adelaide hills where she is surrounded by her subjects – eucalyptus trees, rose gardens, flowers and fruit trees and landscapes. She has a secondary studio at her beach shack where she paints the sea and her family. Her paintings are largely completed from life allowing her observe, understand and interpret nature and light in all its complexity.