After losing confidence in my painting ability at art teacher training college, I didn't paint for 40 years. I left secondary school teaching to pursue my interest in writing and literature, gained a PhD in English and ended up teaching Media and Communications at university. Early in my retirement, the tutor of a watercolour painting class I attended renewed my confidence and that's when I rediscovered my love of painting. I returned to acrylics and began exhibiting my work in 2009, soon developing a distinctive painting style incorporating vibrant colour, minimalism and hard edge abstraction.

My formative influences include the Post Impressionists such as Gauguin; the simplicity and bold design of Japanese woodcuts and the organic, flowing line of Art Nouveau. My subject matter includes portraits, seascapes and more recently, iconic Melbourne landmarks including the Skipping Girl Vinegar sign, Luna Park and the Cheese Stick. The migration series which I began in 2015, was inspired by my parents' stories concerning our migration to Australia by sea in the 1950s and was developed in response to the ANL Maritime Award theme 'Humanity's Relationship with the Sea'.

After winning a number of awards in local exhibitions, I began entering national award exhibitions and have been selected as a finalist in some of these, including the Portia Geach Memorial Award (2017) and the ANL Maritime Award (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019).