I am very honoured to share my painting of Katherine Bennell-Pegg the first female Astronaut to graduate under the Australian Flag and Australian of the Year 2026.
This portrait emerges from a shared childhood landscape on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, where two neighbouring girls grew up under the same night sky, each imagining a different future. One dreamt of painting the moon; the other of travelling to and beyond it.
Fast forward a few years I reunited with Katherine as she completed her astronaut training, so in awe of her achievements, I wanted to paint a portrait also capturing her character- a quiet confidence, intelligence and humility, shaped by perseverance, sacrifice and belief.
The composition reflects this meeting of worlds. The astronaut’s suit situates her firmly in the present, while the moon represents a shared point of origin, aspiration, memory, and the vastness that both art and science seek to understand. The Patches/Badges across her suit trace her journey forming a visual biography- from Australia to the European Astronaut Centre, into the international Astronaut corps and home again. Her upward gaze represents a sense of aspiration and forward vision.
I was well into painting the portrait of Katherine, when she was so deservedly named Australian of The Year. I was literally over the moon with excitement to hear the announcement. She is an amazing person, someone to be celebrated not just for her contributions to Australia but for the future of our planet and all mankind.
‘ Katherine Bennell- Pegg Australian of The Year 2026 ‘
150cm x 120cm
Oil on linen
2026.
Portrait Commission of Mrs Edith (Tilly) Whitaker for the Newington College Art Collection.
Portrait of Mrs Edith (Tilly) Whitaker (1890- 1971)
I was honoured to be commissioned to paint this portrait for the Newington College Art Collection.
Edith Whitaker was Newington College’s first female subject head (and reportedly the first in the GPS). Appointed Head of English in 1942 as part of an effort to replace male teachers who had enlisted during WWII, she was known as a strong disciplinarian who earned deep respect from students and staff.
When she retired in 1949, eighty former and current students attended her farewell dinner, presenting her with a silver teapot and tray, referenced here alongside the Shakespeare volumes in tribute to her life in English education. Edith returned to England where she passed away aged 81 in 1971.
Portrait Commission of Mrs Edith (Tilly) Whitaker, oil on linen, 100cm x 80cm, 2025. In the Newington College Art Collection.
Book Feature : ' The Clayton Utz Art Partnership 2017-2022'
Honored to be featured in the book ‘The Clayton Utz Art Partnership 2017- 2022’ .
Published in Conjunction with Clayton Utz, 3:33 Art Projects, and Bandicoot Publishing Pty Ltd, Alexandria, NSW, Australia. Editors: Bruce Cooper, Kon Gouriotis and Max Germanos. Contributing writer: Dr. Judith Pugh.
Photograph by Scott Ehler/ Clayton Utz.
Macquarie Group Collection Acquisition
Very honored to have my painting “The Artist’s Retreat” acquired by the Macquarie Group Collection. The Macquarie Group Collection acquires art by emerging Australian artists, in all media, around the theme of The Land and its Psyche.
The Artist’s Retreat, 60cm x 66cm, oil on linen, 2020.
Featured in the book 'Still Life' written by Amber Creswell Bell, published by Thames & Hudson.
Kedumba Drawing Award
The Kedumba Drawing Collection was started in 1990 and embodies and reflects all the elements of outstanding drawing created in Australia over more than 50 years and has acquired almost two hundred drawings.
I was fortunate enough to have my work “ Looking In, Seeing Out - Bundanon” acquired for this collection
The subject of my work depicts
myself almost as a voyeur peering from the outside through the glass windows of the The Bundanon Homestead during my recent residency. Capturing both inside and the surrounding landscape in the one frame, as a play on reflections, allows the internal foyer and staircase to fuse seamlessly with the mountains and trees. My technique of mark making, formed intuitively over time, evokes the fragility of remembering by creating a blurring of focus and the slowing of viewing time. The drawn line also relates to the concept of memory consisting of a mass of marks designated into what we have seen, heard and felt.