The desire to create is one that Brooke has had her whole life. Following the completion of an Associate Diploma in Art and Design, she went on to work in various creative roles including an extensive 15 year career in floral design. After side stepping into education roles, Brooke has now finally come full circle, to return to painting and art making.

Growing up in a small country town, both nature and her surroundings provide inspiration. Old abandoned sheds and shacks in the Australian landscape have always held a mystery and fascination. Someone else’s memories within the building, and surrounding paddocks, now a visual memory to others on their daily commute or road trip across the country side. Expressive brush strokes and saturated rich acrylic colours are used to depict the light filtering through the elements and subject, capturing the sun and representing the colour of the day and season. Her artworks are nostalgic, haunting and romantic simultaneously, with colour used to convey a mood or feeling. Construction lines, scratches and intuitive brush strokes explore the relationship of tight and loose elements in the same composition. These are used to enhance the aesthetic and add charm and patina to the image, creating a vintage film like appearance and encouraging the viewer to meander through the artwork.

Looking past the obvious, close observation and engagement of the subject is her process.

Read more about Brooke here.

“This piece is inspired by our weekend drives around the backroads of Stanley in NE Victoria, near where we live. The artwork isn't so much about a certain place but more about the feeling you get when you become fully present and aware of your surroundings, and aims to highlight the beauty in the everyday.”

“Through this piece my message is also to encourage the viewer to see the often overlooked or unnoticed aspects of beauty in their own world, such as in the shadows. To look through what is obvious, to what is beyond.”

Brooke Whelan, 2024

Shipping to anywhere in Australia is just $30 for this work. International shipping is available on request.