Sunkissed is a series of oil paintings inspired by Sydney’s coastline and beach life. My work mainly focuses on swimmers and sunbathers, where figures soften into the salty light and blur into atmosphere. Grounded in life drawing, this series continues my ongoing interest in the figure and how it sits within the coastal landscape.
I’ve always loved a coastal aesthetic, and from very early on I was interested in drawing people at the beach. I first noticed the foreshortening of the figure through the timeless photography of Max Dupain, and I have continued to study foreshortening angles through life drawing. I like to observe the quiet, everyday moments of resting, floating, reading, and swimming.
Each work is constructed through layers of oil paint, allowing small “kisses” of colour to surface gradually. Tangerine and rose pink tones glow beneath and across the image. I love the buttery texture of the paint itself, using brushes, palette knives, and my fingers to create movement and leave loose brushstrokes visible.
My long time obsession with stripes continues throughout this series, bringing a graphic element to the beach scenes through towels and umbrellas. Sunkissed holds the shoreline as both an observed and remembered place, where familiar moments slowly dissolve into something more abstract over time.
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