Bronwyn Van de Graaff
Australia
Artist Biography
Bronwyn Van de Graaff is a botanical and still life artist. Born in Sydney in 1964, Van de Graaff lives on a small farm in Mount Beauty in regional Victoria in southern Australia. Van de Graaff paints the fruits and plants growing in and around her Alpine area, which she calls her Garden of Eden. Her paintings explore the themes of “perfect imperfection”.
“I paint from life – and life decays, grows old, changes, deepens, becomes more interesting,” she said. “I seek out the imperfect, the misshapen, the crumpled leaves, the bits chewed by insects and birds. This, to me, is where I find the beautiful essence of life. I hope to inspire others to simply spend quiet time enjoying the life of plants.”
Van de Graaff is largely self-taught, but has studied classical fine art in short courses at the Bienarte Studio in Brisbane and the Angel Academy in Florence. After completing an Arts/Law degree at the University of Sydney and practising law for 20 years, she decided a decade ago to pursue art full time.
Van de Graaff works in watercolour and oil, and her paintings often take months to complete. She is inspired by the classical still life paintings of the Dutch Golden Age and the early botanical artists.
Van de Graaff has received numerous awards and has featured in group and solo exhibitions. She was a finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW, winner of the Gosford Art Prize, and was awarded a Gold Medal in the Royal Horticultural Society in London. Other exhibitions include the Botanical Art Society of Australia at New South Wales Parliament House and Botanica at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. Her paintings are held in international and national collections, including the Shirley Sherwood Gallery in Kew Gardens in London, the Hunt Institute in Boston, and the High Court of Australia in Canberra.
* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 16th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.
