Cheryl Willcox
North Avoca, NSW
Oil painter capturing the quiet beauty of nature. Cheryl’s expressive brushwork and layered light evoke energy, emotion & story in every scene.
Message
Cheryl Willcox is an Australian oil painter known for her impressionistic landscapes, luminous florals, and meditative lily pond series. Working from her home studio on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Cheryl draws deep inspiration from the beauty of her surroundings — from tangled gardens and still waters to the shifting light along coastal edges.
Professionally trained in art education, Cheryl began teaching in 1982 after completing her Bachelor of Education (Art) at Newcastle College of Advanced Education. Her commitment to lifelong learning led her to refine her skills at Watts Atelier in California and travel to China, where she deepened her appreciation for art’s cultural and symbolic roles.
Her painting process is intuitive and layered — a balance of observation and spontaneity. With a strong foundation in traditional techniques, she embraces gestural brushwork, bold colour, and the unpredictable dance between accident and intention.
Cheryl’s work has been described as energetic, light-filled, and emotionally resonant. She paints what she calls “quiet stories,” capturing fleeting beauty and the emotional charge of natural spaces. Alongside her studio practice, she mentors other artists and teaches workshops that celebrate creativity, confidence, and the expressive power of paint.
Statement
I am an Australian oil painter drawn to the quiet beauty of the natural world — moments of light caught on water, the stillness between movement, and the energy of growth. My work explores the emotional resonance of landscape: lily ponds, overgrown gardens, and coastal edges where water meets land. These places offer both visual richness and symbolic depth.
With a background in traditional training and a passion for expressive mark-making, I embrace the rhythm of the brush, the layering of colour, and the spontaneous gestures that emerge in the process of painting. I build surfaces slowly, allowing accidents and intuition to shape the final image.
Each painting is an invitation to pause — to notice the way light slips across a petal, or how a shadow dissolves into blue-green water. Viewers often describe my work as full of energy and movement, yet grounded in stillness. I see beauty not as perfection, but as a presence: something felt rather than seen, and revealed through texture, tone, and atmosphere.
I paint what I long to hold onto — moments of wonder, fleeting light, and the stories that live beneath the surface.