Kylie Elkington’s (1983)
Translating the natural environment through to art
Kylie Elkington’s (1983) work, which captures the beauty of natural wilderness and themes of life cycle, has been recognised with many award nominations—but when graduating from Brisbane Girls Grammar School, Kylie didn’t immediately envisage pursuing a career as a professional artist.
Kylie moved to Armidale to study Environmental Science before changing her degree to Architecture. She eventually changed her trajectory to study a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting and Art Theory Majors at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. She received First Class Honours and later went on to study a Master of Fine Arts at Monash University, Victoria.
In 2012, Kylie was an Artist-in-Residence of the Bundanon Trust, in the Shoalhaven region of New South Wales and this was the inspiration of her work Morning Walk, Bundanon Trust 2015.
Morning Walk, Bundanon Trust 2015, Oil on Linen
Established as a national Trust in 1993, the Bundanon Trust organisation creates learning programs for students of all ages and operates Australia's largest artist in residence program. Bundanon promotes the value of landscape.
Kylie has been a finalist in numerous art prizes, including the Glover Prize 2018 and 2019, the Hutchins Art Prize 2018, and Hadley’s Art Prize 2019. She has won the Philip Bacon Award on two occasions, was named a finalist for the 2021 Women’s Art Prize Tasmania, and in 2024 was a finalist for the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award. Her works are held in the permanent collections of several galleries, and a number of corporate collections.
Brisbane Girls Grammar School is also fortunate to have seven of Kylie’s works in its Fine Arts collection. Kylie has generously gifted these to the School through the Commonwealth Cultural Gifts Program.
Kylie’s passion for the natural environment is foremost in her art—she describes observing nature as ‘endlessly fascinating’.
‘In the last few years, I have been inspired by native plants and flowers. Looking into a tree or a shrub, you can almost see a universe with the shadows and the way leaves behave.’
Kylie finds inspiration in the rugged landscape of Tasmania where she has been based in Deloraine for the last few years alongside her husband, renowned artist Richard Dunlop.
‘I have joined a number of land care groups and plant society groups, and we go on excursions and discuss native plants.’
‘There is obviously a lot of inspiration everywhere and up on the plateau, in the Cradle Mountain area, the landscape is quite different compared to down at the coast—the ruggedness of the way those natives up there hang on and display their beauty, can be quite difficult for people to understand,’ she said.
‘One painting I did in particular, which was a windswept plain with lots of different plants, was purchased by a lady who I had known in Brisbane, and she invited me to her house to look at it. She said, after having it on the wall and going back to the plateau, that she saw the area with a whole new set of eyes.’
Kylie describes creating art as ‘quite an intellectual pursuit’ because there are many decisions to be considered and made during the process.
‘It’s really about putting the paint on and working out what to do with it to achieve a finished piece,’ she said.
‘I might have half a dozen photographs of the plateau, not all of the same thing but composition and colour reminders, and you get the paint on the canvas and the painting does have a mind of its own, and it’s a very creative process because you aren’t copying the photographs, you are creating something new that didn’t exist before.
‘That’s where the interest, struggle and the triumph come through.’