Kylie’s 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.
Kylie has been a finalist in the Glover Prize 2018 and 2019, the Hutchins Art Prize 2018, Hadley’s Art Prize 2019. She has also won the Philip Bacon Award (on two occasions) and was recently named a finalist for the 2021 Women’s Art Prize Tasmania. Her works are held in the permanent collections of several regional galleries, the University of Central Queensland and a number of corporate collections.
Brisbane Girls Grammar School is also fortunate to have five of Kylie’s works in its art collection, which she has generously gifted to the School in recent years through the ATO Cultural Gifts Program.
Kylie’s passion for the natural environment translates through her art—she describes observing nature as ‘endlessly fascinating’.
‘In the last few years, I have been inspired by native plants and flowers,’ she said.
‘Looking into a tree or a shrub, you can almost see a universe with the shadows and the way leaves behave.’
Kylie has found plenty of inspiration in the rugged landscape of Tasmania—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, one lady, who I had known in Brisbane, purchased it and 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 and it 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 comes through.’
