2025

The Greenhills Art Centre 2025 Artist Residency

About Green Hills

Across the road from the Old Pub the no longer used rail line was once busy transporting the local wheat crops to Perth. Visitors from Perth and local towns would come to stay on weekends for fairs and horse races. The Old Pub was still operating in 1990 when the two new American owners renovated the Old Pub with great style. They enhanced its history and beauty with finely framed paintings, antiques and furniture. A large shed was also built at the back of the Old Pub.

The Greenhills Art Centre 2025 Artist in Residence

 Johanna and Greg Larkins renovated the shed and it became a large light filled studio space attached to the building with room for 10 artists with easels, tables and printing equipment, providing a productive  and collaborative space to create work day or night.Johanna Larkins is a Dutch artist of renown trained in Holland and Florence in classical still life painting. She and her partner Greg run the Green Hills Art Centre and a framing business for local and Perth based artists. The small township of Greenhills is situated in farming country close to York the oldest colonial settlement in Western Australia located 2.5 hours from Perth.

 First Artist in Residence – Green Hills Art Centre 2025

I was very lucky to be offered the opportunity by Johanna and Greg Larkins to become the first Artist in Residence at The Greenhills Arts Centre, Greenhills in Western Australia in August 2025. The kindness and generosity shown by Johanna and Greg to myself and fellow artists made it an unforgettable artist in residency experience.

Just as in past residencies in Australia and China, having a creative space outside of my Sydney based studio and practice supports a period of intense contemplation and creativity without the distractions of everyday life. My residency was enhanced by the artistic dialogue that flowed with fellow artists who arrived over my three week stay. A fellow artist from Argentina, Mapi De Aubeyzon shared by daily walks and we had some interesting conversations walking in that flat landscape that was so different for both of us.

Drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape, capturing the sunrise and sunsets through the tree filled with birds;  walking morning and late afternoon documenting the majestic white fecund gum trees lining the sides of the dirt and sealed roads, as the chorus of galahs, parrots, native minors and crows filled the sky and the trees.

My small painted studies of birds will be shown with my bird sculptures and paintings in my upcoming exhibitionThe Gathering,1-8 November 2025 at Antique Decorative Art, 12 Macleay Street Potts Point, Sydn

My Residency Photographs

I have included a sample of photographs below of the historic old Pub now the Art Centre with its beautifully painted rooms in the 1990’s & the large attached studio space where I worked with other artist who arrived over the three weeks I was there . Photograph of Mapi de Aubeyon from Argentina in artistic contemplation below and images of the surrounding countryside where I walked daily documenting the white gums full of birds to start my painting studies a sample shown here.