Artist Statements

Aleeta Northey

The Rainbow Gum is a majestic eucalypt and an example of the joy experienced by Artist, Aleeta Northey’s lifelong love observation of the natural world around her.

Initially inspired by the colours of the trees body, the rich palette informs the canopy of this piece.

The sculpture is illuminated by the magnetic presence of natural colours moving across the surface of this gift of nature.

Alex Jobbagy

A snail reaches the grass at the edge of a highway, just beyond the tire marks that signal passing danger. The work captures a quiet moment of relief and survival – a ‘feel good’ moment, focusing on a small, easily overlooked victory. It invites the viewer to pause in the aftermath – to feel the comfort of having made it safely to the other side.

Andrea Hughes

This work embraces an unapologetic feel-good kitsch vibe through a feminist lens, elevating the domestic and decorative into sites of power, glamour, and joy. Glittering poodles, symbols of care, companionship, and stylised femininity, are thoughtfully painted on Perspex, front and back, and sit above embellished vintage wallpaper. Encased within a custom, hand-painted custom wooden frame honours, craft, sentimentality, and the radiant pleasure of the everyday, made tangible through glitter, colour, and nostalgic delight.

Anna Caione

I am interested in how texture is constructed upon the surface of an artwork and how it influences the way one can relate to it. The notion of engaging viewers’ senses, particularly the sensation of touch provided by my handmade surfaces, allows me to infuse my essence into the work. This piece functions as a miniature architectural artefact, where scale influences interaction, cultivating an intimate, immersive experience.

Asmita Tamhankar

This sculpture draws its spirit from Krushna Kamal (Passionflower), a memory from my childhood garden. The sculpture is designed to be enjoyed from above and every angle. The intricate, delicate form of petals invite a slow thoughtful gaze. In shaping the four figurines, I am reminded of my own unfolding- an increasing awareness of ageing, a quiet sense of roles fulfilled and a gentle acceptance of moving into next stage of my life.

Barb Hodgens

At a time when speed, reproduction, and automation dominate visual culture, Barb Hodgens enjoys a counter-practice grounded in attention, repetition, and material intelligence. ‘Joy’, ‘Ripple’ and ‘Pulse Flower’ invite reflection, nervous-system regulation, and quiet resistance to acceleration. Her paintings are offered as a reset and place to breath.

Barbara Bateman

This painting is small depiction of a familiar landscape from my home at Cathedral Rock, near Lorne. The rich, intense colours express the joy and happiness I feel when placed in front of this amazing landscape. The rich blues-greens and vibrant yellow-pinks are special to the way I see and research the colours in the bush. I offer the viewer the opportunity to join me in seeing a new vision and appreciation  of the Australian Bush.

This painting “Bush Visions” reflects my engagement with the lush and scrubby bush on my property in the Otway Region. As I immerse myself in this landscape I discovery both the outer view and the inner feelings. Outer in the sense that the viewer may see a more abstract vision of different colours, shapes and spaces not sighted before. Inner, in that this painting expresses my personal experiences, memory and emotions.

Carmel Ritchie

This lady is dreamily wondering about her life.

Made with old crockery, commercial tiles, beads and jewellery, the mosaic is well balanced and enticing.

Cetta Pilati

Full of Joy (Cellular Series) explores how joy can be created through the choices we make. Built from cellular forms, the work reflects how small, intentional actions accumulate, shaping our inner world and filling us with a sense of balance, presence and joy.

Claudia Bunce

This piece evokes the mystery and magic of owls.

I wanted to make something cute but also a little weird and creepy. Valentines Day was coming up, so hearts were in my head.

Darren King

Part of an ongoing series celebrating birds that visit my backyard and are native to our beautiful country, this collage is constructed entirely from salvaged paper and adhesive. It portrays a rainbow lorikeet in vivid, layered colour, with torn fragments from books, magazines, and packaging arranged to create feathers, light, and depth. Without paint, reclaimed materials transform into something alive, expressing renewal, sustainability, and the bright, joyful spirit of Australia’s wildlife each day for all.

Ebru Sezen

Ebru Sezen is a Melbourne-based artist working in the fields of sculpture, travel and nature photography and painting. In her new series, ‘Synchronise’, that reflects upon murmuration of starlings, Ebru is interested in evoking notions of spontaneity, synchronicity and organised unison of this amazing aerial dance. She is fascinated by the movement starlings create, as if it is one whole entity. Her work expresses the wonder of starling murmuration and its symbolic associations.

Elif Sezen

This work belongs to a new series of vibrant acrylic paintings, where Sezen explores landscapes that oscillate between surreal, abstract and ethereal imagery, offering alternate visions of reality that evoke an otherworldly notion. Combining various painting techniques, she blurs the line between fantasy and reality, creating uplifting landscapes that offer a fresh perspective of a sense of place. Colour becomes a subtle energetic force, guiding viewers through states of awareness, contemplation and healing.

Fiona Fisher

Fiona Fisher is a Melbourne based painter known for her expressive acrylic works on canvas. With a career that began in oils and pastels, Fiona has evolved her practice to embrace the versatility and immediacy of acrylics. Her work spans a wide range of subjects executed in both abstract and traditional styles.

Fiona Verdouw

Trees can be a bit like people in the way they seem to congregate. Leaning into one another, or swaying with the wind like music lovers at a concert. I like to get amongst the trees and feel their solidarity. They are never in a hurry to be somewhere else; instead they are content to stand, shift limbs, and appreciate the change in light at the end of a day.

Fouad Berzghal

Maamool a symbol of family and shared rituals evokes joy and warmth. Even in Melbourne, far from home, the work carries memories of celebration, togetherness, and a sense of belonging that travels across continents.

Geoff Lynch

Geoff Lynch combines visual art, literature and music through hand-written musical scores, presented as two-dimensional wall art. His works interpret the musicality inherent in lines from great literature.

The rhythms reflect the meter of the spoken word; the melodies exaggerate the natural contour of pitch in the spoken phrases; and the contemporary, dissonant harmonies colour in the inherent meaning behind the words in their literary context.

Georgia Clark

My work often involves trying to capture random moments that have left me feeling a little in awe, sometimes nostalgic, or like this recent one at home that just made me feel happy. This is Penny’s afternoon ‘Feel Good’ spot.

Hiromi Tango

Peace Garden is a reflective meditation on how making tiny changes within ourselves – even on the neuronal level –  can lead to big impact. Gentle floating movement and ideas of harmony, peace, resilience, and hope have been woven throughout the work. The calming colour palette represents Native Australian plants happy wanderer, lilly pilly, and golden wattle.

Small interactions

An act of kindness gently

Shifting perspectives

Each tiny blossom

A promise of renewal

Hope for the future

Jacinta Maude

For me, painting is a meditative practice that invites calm, care and attentiveness. Through intuitive, sustained gestures, My aim is to find moments of stillness and quiet balance within a busy world. Using colour and geometry to express feeling, I let shades of green, purple and pink inhabit soft, in-between states. Layered surfaces suggest movement and change, while an acceptance of imperfection cultivates a sense of ease, resilience and presence.

Jackie Mackinnon

Beautiful gardens and plantings have always had a great influence on my work – daturas hanging upside down outside my bedroom window, a posy of freshly picked gardenias, sunflowers or hollyhocks peeping over picket fences, so many trees displaying their branches of different leaves that I love to collect, or the vast array of roses that smell SO good’…

But! Please don’t ask me what specific flower have I sculpted – it’s MY FEEL-GOOD flower’!

Julia Kennedy-Bell

This work explores the many walks around my local neighbourhood during many COVID lockdowns. It incorporates different textures and colours of the urban inner west area and transforms them into a three-dimensional world. This was a way of staying present and mindful during a difficult period.

Julia Mackie

This moment is the catalyst to joy, the moment of overcoming fear and comfort for invigoration, bravery and excitement. Entitled ‘ She remembered she knew how to jump’ for those of us who may have grown tired and comfortable and almost but not quite forgotten the excitement of taking risks. Remember that you know how, that you’ve always known how, and damn it feels good.

Kasey Harrington

“Lover 1” is a part of a series of underwear artworks empowering you to feel confident and cute AF no matter who you are! This series and this artwork is designed to showcase different bodies, butts and boobies, and to create a feeling of joy and freedom in the viewer whilst acknowledging we are all different and this should be seen and celebrated.

Kath McCann

Clouds and mountain peaks mirroring the ups and downs of the Summer season. Letting the gouache lead and create the shapes.

Giving the canvas the colour jand allowing the gouache to play with the canvas and a drop of water. Creating organic shapes of peaks and troughs and birds flying through the underbrush and over the landscape.

Kelly Kondis

This piece is a quiet observation of shifting atmosphere where light and weight balance on the edge of change and the low horizon invites stillness. This allows the sky to remain the subject and the small scale draws you in, encouraging close viewing.

Kelly Sullivan

Power Trip is a repurposed diamond-art Perspex box which transforms discarded craft pieces into a glittering symbolic box. Peace doves clash visually with layered skull motifs, creating tension between harmony and dominance. Diamond-bright patterns shimmer on the Perspex surface, turning kitsch fragments into a commentary on power, conflict and resilience. The 3D format heightens the sense of containment, as if these symbols of peace and power are locked in an ongoing struggle inside a sparkling dice.

Kirsi Reinikka

The inspiration for the “To Exist” came from the news that the butterflies in the Amazon are losing their colour because of deforestation. The feel good thought is that we still have butterflies.

Larissa Rogacheva

An archaic mythological narrative never fails to add a sweet moment of confusion into our lives.

Centaur, the chimeric creature, vessel of wisdom? Perhaps not.

Lauren McInnes

Using my popular acrylic, textured line style, this piece was inspired by the stunning Mt Martha Pillars, on the Mornington Peninsula. An iconic destination set against a stunning, calming sunset.

One of Mt Eliza’s most loved beaches – Daveys Bay! This unmistakable location is set apart from any other beach with its red rock and iconic tree, helping outline the horizon.

Laurie Franklin

I think Joy lies in observation of simple things – small moments that require noticing and the presence to appreciate them. I painted the entire surface of the wooden sculpture with flowers and butterflies – two things that always make me smile. Gold leaf to adds decadence to the naïve style. The secret to feeling good is a collection of small moments and surrounding yourself with things that make you happy.

Louise Kyriakou

Rise and Shine celebrates the joy we find in friendship, community, and simple human connection. Each handmade tile joins a small gathering of characters, each with its own presence and personality. I love creating work that feels playful and inviting, and I hope this piece encourages a moment to appreciate the connections that brighten our days.

Lucia Roohizadegan

This painting was inspired by Zeynep Sönmez’s clash with Yulia Putintseva at Kia Arena during this year’s Australian Open. Despite losing in three sets, Sönmez was the clear victor in the eyes of the crowd, having achieved a career-high ranking breakthrough by surging into the third round of the Australian Open and delivering a powerful reminder that qualifiers should never be underestimated.This painting was inspired by Zeynep Sönmez’s clash with Yulia Putintseva at Kia Arena during this year’s Australian Open. Despite losing in three sets, Sönmez was the clear victor in the eyes of the crowd, having achieved a career-high ranking breakthrough by surging into the third round of the Australian Open and delivering a powerful reminder that qualifiers should never be underestimated.

Lucie Stauffenegger

This work explores the uplifting energy of movement and light. Through layered blues, turquoise and soft coral tones, the composition evokes the gentle rhythm of water and the feeling of emotional flow.

The fish emerge within the surrounding currents, symbolising playfulness, resilience and quiet happiness.

“Current of Joy” invites the viewer to experience a moment of lightness, a space where movement feels effortless and optimism quietly surfaces.

Lucy Bauld

Sorbet Sea is a joyful splash of colour where rich raspberry pink swirls and dances through fresh green tones in a playful, unexpected harmony. Bold yet uplifting, the palette feels like summer in full swing sweet, bright, and impossible to ignore. Movement flows across the canvas like waves made of colour, intertwining and unfolding with a carefree rhythm. There’s energy here, but also balance, a celebration of contrast that feels deliciously fun and full of life.

Apricot Dream is a playful exploration of contrast, a vibrant splash of apricot dancing boldly against soft, dusty blues. The warmth of the apricot tones brings energy and joy, while the muted blues create balance and calm. There’s a dreamy rhythm to this piece, where colour feels both spontaneous and harmonious. Light-hearted yet grounded, Apricot Dream is a celebration of warmth meeting coolness, a little burst of sunshine drifting across a quiet sky.

Peachy Wave is a playful surge of colour, vibrant cobalt blues rolling effortlessly into warm peachy tones and earthy browns. The movement flows across the canvas like a wave in motion, bold yet carefree. There’s a joyful contrast between the cool intensity of blue and the softness of peach, grounded by rich brown hues that add warmth and depth. Fun, energetic, and full of personality, Peachy Wave brings a fresh splash of colour to any space.

Margaret McLoughlin

I’ve been captivated by this inspiring Yves Saint Laurent property in Marrakech, featuring many succulent plants on our rural property. This is part of a series I’m creating.

MaryLin Litchfield

The abstract marks and spaces in this image reflect an inner state of remembrance. I sit in a quiet space with a coalescence of memories of the magnificent desert lands of Australia as represented through my textured marks and earthern colours.

Maya Wong

This sculptural work imagines the hopeful act of capturing a sunset in a bottle before it disappears, to save its warmth and colours for later.

Mel Campbell

The Chelsea Australian Garden at Olinda has been a recent place of inspiration. It is filled with beautiful native plants that exhibit the balanced lines of nature. I photograph and then use oil paints to interpret my images. I aim to explore the flow of colour, light, line and shape.

Melanie Bardolia

Holi Remnants’ is an energetic abstract oil painting inspired by the kaleidoscopic aftermath of India’s Holi Festival. It captures a collective riot of colour, movement, and joy, where streets bear the traces of shared celebration. The work reflects moments of childlike abandon and innocence, as people momentarily shed restraint and return to play, colour, and connection.

Melanie Melnychuk

This painting is based on a photograph I took out walking. It made me think of the simple comfort we find in being near the ones we love, no matter what we’re doing.

Michelle Neal               

‘Aqua Mandalas’ was inspired by my re-discovered joy of swimming. How soothing and meditative it can be. The hand cut text reads:

I’m making aqua mandalas.

Spun to the rhythm of my breath.

I’m drawing in sunlight

Playing with shadows

Making tiny pockets of air.

Monica Costa

“Buddies”, symbolises the feel-good energy of companionship. It depicts a playful bond between a bird and a dog, reflecting a shared need for connection found in humans and even plants. The dog’s upward glance suggests anticipation and the exciting possibility of play. Pinched and moulded from clay, the work is finished in a blue barium glaze with white speckles, evoking the salty air, wind and water of the beach, a place both dog and I love to visit.

Taking a risk can be unsettling. “Hurrah”, is a body of work that features two works and marks the idea of Risk and Reward. These sculptures celebrate the bravery it takes to lean into that wobble and face the uncertainty that life presents. “Woo-Hoo,” the work with the red dog, symbolises the quiet achiever who overcomes obstacles, and the other sculpture, “Look at Me,” depicts a player who balances obstacles and seeks recognition for their success. Together, they echo a simple truth: facing challenges feels good, and achieving a major goal makes us feel incredible.

Nahian Nidhi

This painting is inspired by a 46-degree summer day in Australia, when I longed for rain. Through this work, I explored textures and muted tones to reflect the moments before rain like atmosphere.

Nicole Onslow

Drawing inspiration from the emotion and sensory experience of travel, my paintings represent the way those lived experiences shift when internalised over time. As details fade, the softened memories naturally reshape toward abstraction in a layered accumulation of form and gesture. Energetic in style and alive with colour, my work is a visual dialogue of the places, experiences, and connections where I’ve found myself at my happiest. (Hand finished timber frame available to buyer on request).

Pip Milton

Reigniting the value and beauty of handwoven textiles is a central theme to my arts practice as a handweaver. Textiles were used as currency along historical trade routes. Imagine the opulence and magnificence of this era. ‘Daisy Chain’, handwoven in paper, embodies this splendour and the historical importance of textiles.

Rachel Rae

‘Where the Day Begins’ by Rachel Rae captures a quiet morning moment beside the ocean. Walking at the water’s edge, the figure and dog move together through a familiar routine. This painting reflects how time in nature restores energy and presence, with the sea offering movement, rhythm, and clarity. It celebrates simple beginnings, where connection to place helps us feel grounded, awake, and ready for the day ahead.

Rebecca Bresnahan

This painting was a meaningful break needed from creating bigger more detailed pieces. Painting a matchstick and researching the chemicals used to make them pushed me into a place of meditation focusing on friction and how being in close proximity to people and how going through uncomfortable situations helps us grow.

”As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17

Robyn Kinsela

I have selected unintelligible text and used it as pattern, evoking the textures of the bark of trees in a dense coastal bush landscape. I was remembering the quiet beauty and solitude of the proud yet vulnerable coastal trees that are settled on the far south coast of NSW. I am not copying a view. I am capturing more. I am enjoying gentle breezes, summer colours and the rhythms of light and shade.

Rod Dawson

Purnululu (Bungle Bungles) National Park in WA is such a dramatic landscape

(an eroded plain, revealing an ancient sea bed) and to see it from the air

approaching sunset is just awe-inspiring.

To interpret it’s vastness is a challenge, to do it justice is an impossibility.

A digital aerial photo was printed onto canvas with an overlay of six colour

Posca paint markers following the contours of the eroded sedimentary rock, accentuating it’s skeletal layers.

Rosa Fedele

Rosa Fedele is an Australian contemporary artist based in the beautiful Central Highlands, Victoria.

Whimsical, playful and seductive, her work is genre-defying, often veering into the world of whimsy. Her preferred medium is oil, her style a blend of figurative, illustrative with a touch of absurdism.

Her Dream Machines series is a celebration of vintage cars and Italian scooters, often accompanied by darling doggos and romantic beauties from the silver screen.

Ruth Bosveld

Responding to a challenge to paint in miniature on a teabag, I used a reference kindly supplied by Alan Fletcher, of a beautiful musk lorikeet.  I chose a Twinings Irish breakfast teabag because that tea is my favourite, and also because the green of the tag is similar to the main feathers of the bird.

Serena Zlatnik

My solid bronze chilli celebrates heat as both sensation and symbol. Cast in enduring metal, a fleeting spice becomes permanent, honoring resilience, desire, and the quiet drama of everyday objects. The surface balances polish and raw texture, inviting touch while holding tension. Humorous yet reverent, the chilli stands as a monument to intensity—how something modest can command attention, provoke feeling, and linger long after the first encounter, with warmth, wit, and unapologetic presence intact.

Shaya De Mamiel

Working in miniature, I distill the shapes and shifts found in Australian landscapes. As a self-taught ceramic artist, I work with local clays and glazes to reflect earth and horizon. Arranged like rising landforms, they celebrate place, material identity, and the intimate connections we hold with the environments that shape us.

Twelve miniature ceramics glazed in soft green and opal white reflect the subtle light and vegetation of the Australian landscape. Hand-thrown on a 6cm wheel and elevated on Australian timber plinths, they emphasise harmony between natural materials, inviting intimate viewing and celebrating local origins, precision, and subtle variation in form.

Tania Stavovy         

Elements emerging and combining to create life as it emerges and forms.

The emotional essence of the first universal relationship ( between mother and child) lies within the security of the enclosed space.

Tania Babic

My work explores the intersection between different coexisting lifeforms through intricate drawings. I frequently capture fond everyday moments between humans and animals, especially pets, reflecting on how we live together. ‘Scratching the itch’ captures my cat’s satisfied reaction as her chin is being scratched. The experiences we share with animals in seemingly ordinary moments, like this interaction, are pivotal in achieving a sense of fulfillment and liveliness. I present this enjoyable moment to the viewer.

Theodore Kapnias

Othello Awe is an expression of love and tenderness.  Inspired by the roses we grew up with that our grandmother nurtured and taught us how to grow.   The rose’s vibrant colours beam from the garden,  enveloping the viewer with a feeling of tranquility that softens their heart.  This Othello Rose was grown in our own garden and this painting is an ode to our grandmother who taught us everything that we know.

Tony Jackson

A happy ocean is a happy planet- ocean creatures and humans in balance for a feel good future.

Mankind and earthly creatures living happily together in perfect harmony for a feel good future.

Vanessa Esau

The inspirations for my collage Home Time are the simple pleasures of being at home and things I enjoy – my garden, good food, comfortable slippers, reading a book, watching a movie, my cats, relaxing with a coffee. Most importantly, it is an expression of gratitude for having a home and the time to enjoy it.  The vintage images used are a reflection of growing up in the 1960s and connect me with childhood memories.

Wilhelmina M

The hope that rises when that warm red glows behind the lids as sunshine hits the closed eye. Especially in spring as the hints of heat bring the promise of summer.

I practiced this piece with watercolour, ink and gouache before arriving at this final. Achieving an impasto style with gouache is a new and developing skill for me; it resulted in a piece that captures the warmth I wished to express.

Yuki Kumashiro

A cozy scene of a grandmother in the Japanese countryside enjoying a quiet tea and snack. Painted in acrylic on canvas, capturing simple, everyday joy and the warmth of rural life, it evokes the charm and calm of domestic moments.

Zeljko Trkulja

Architectural study travel sketch.