Conception is a body of work that has unfolded over the last five years. Some pieces completed recently, others reawakened after long periods of being stuffed under my bed. It began, and ultimately returned, to the same place: my dining room table.

This work has not come easily. It’s been a struggle to establish a studio practice, and harder still to silence the critical voice that often meets me there. That voice, persistent and overwhelming, has held me back for years. But with time and care, I’ve begun to hear another voice: one that is brave, strong, and true. It’s the voice of my younger self, the child who once sat on these same yellowwood benches, fearless with her paintbrush, certain in her joy. Conception is a collaboration, a quiet reclaiming.

I combine layered ink washes, meticulous pen work, and reimagined photographic images from my personal archive. Beginning each piece with loose, fluid gestures, letting ink find its way, I return with pen to make detailed, repetitive marks. The process is meditative and slow, offering moments of presence and clarity. Over time, I’ve come to understand this method as both aesthetic and therapeutic, a space where I meet myself honestly.

Conception weaves themes of rites of passage:  birth, youth, adolescence, motherhood, and death, as cycles that shape identity. Reflecting a journey of returning to myself, through memory, image, and mark-making. Together we recolour memory, weaving play with precision, curiosity with care.

The photographs I revisit are old but unfinished stories, recoloured, reworked, and transformed. In that transformation lies the heart of Conception: turning memory, and sometimes pain or grief, into something vivid, tactile, and new.

The exhibition offers a space to witness the tension between fear and creativity, memory and renewal, doubt and expression. It is about the quiet power of creative persistence. In recolouring the past, in transforming memory into colour, I have found ways to move forward.