Luminous Vessels V, 2026

During a recent holiday in Portugal, I visited friends who have restored an old stone home. The rooms were filled with natural light streaming through generous windows and furnished with unusual objects. I spent many hours arranging these objects into still-life compositions, waiting for the sunlight and chosen forms to align. I moved through many iterations, unsure of what I was searching for, until I noticed the gooseberries. The simplicity of these delicate, papery vessels, arranged in the glow of the morning sun was compelling. Their fragility seemed to contradict their potential for growing new life. This tension between delicacy and vitality became the starting point for my Luminous Vessels series. At the heart of this collection is an exploration of the ephemeral nature of sunlight and its power to illuminate the inherent beauty of the everyday. I studied the shifting relationships between the papery gooseberries, the scratched table and the stucco walls as light moved across them. From these studies, I developed layered oil paintings through translucent applications of paint, allowing complex textures and the elusive qualities of light and shadow to gradually emerge. The process is both deliberate and intuitive. Each painting is refined through successive layers until it embodies the delicacy and luminosity I seek. I am mindful throughout of the fine balance between completion and overworking, allowing the painting itself to guide many of the final decisions. Underlying this collection are three interwoven threads: the ever-changing qualities of sunlight, a reverence for the natural world and an ongoing dialogue with the discipline of painting itself. Each work holds a quality of stillness, a space in which the transient grace of ordinary things can be revealed through light.

Kirsten Hocking is a Perth / Boorloo based oil painter who works primarily across still life and landscape genres. She holds a Bachelor of Contemporary Arts (Visual Arts) from Edith Cowan University and a Graduate Diploma of Education from The University of Western Australia.
Before becoming a full-time artist, Kirsten worked professionally as a clinical aromatherapist and natural perfumer, experiences that continue to inform her deep connection to plants and the natural world. She later trained as a secondary school art teacher and continues to teach within the community sector, a role that complements and enriches her studio practice.
Kirsten has participated in group exhibitions across Australia, including an exhibition at Michael Reid Northern Beaches in 2026. In 2025, she collaborated with three artists on the exhibition “Hyde Park”, documenting the seasonal rhythms and ecological vulnerability of Hyde Park. Two paintings from the exhibition were acquired by the City of Vincent. The same year, she completed an artist residency in Cornwall, where she further developed her place-based painting practice.
Awards for Kirsten’s paintings include the Francesca Nelson Award (PLC, 2023), the People’s Choice Award at the Claremont Art Awards (2016), and the Louise Macfie Prize from Edith Cowan University (2013).