A group exhibition celebrating the ‘Still Life’ genre.
These works capture ‘shared memories, special moments, and seeing the beauty surrounding us in every day.’
Featuring Kylie Sirett, Veronica O’Leary & Helen Heywood with an additional new work from Alexandra Lewisohn.
Helen Heywood
Helen Heywood’s paintings of native flora capture their beauty in dramatic detail, portraying the quiet drama. Building on still life tradition, Heywood’s paintings are depicted in striking realism while revealing a controlled simplicity of composition and arrangement.
Whether depicting the flourishing bounty of new blossom, the delicate underside of an ageing arrangement or a banksia flower in transition, Heywood’s paintings speak of hope, resilience, growth and transformation.
Helen first studied photography at Charles Sturt University in Albury, and later returning to study painting and drawing in Gippsland where she spent many years prior to relocation back to North East Victoria.
She has exhibited across Victoria including the Gippsland Art Gallery, Meeniyan Art Gallery, The Hive Gallery, Wangaratta Art Gallery -WPACC and EG Art Gallery, Bairnsdale.
In 2010 she was a finalist in the John Leslie Prize for Landscape Painting at the Gippsland Art Gallery.
Kylie Sirett
As an artist, I draw inspiration from the richness of my immediate surroundings. Every moment, every object, and every interaction holds potential for artistic exploration. Whether it’s the play of light on familiar landscapes, the textures of everyday objects, or the vibrant colours of urban life, I am constantly attuned to the beauty that surrounds me. Through my work, I strive to capture the essence of these fleeting moments, inviting viewers to pause, reflect and find beauty in the ordinary. My art is a celebration of the profound significance found within the seemingly mundane, reminding us to cherish the world that exists just beyond our doorstep.
After completing high school I began my fine art training at Footscray TAFE, I completed the first year, focusing on drawing and oil painting. However, I decided not to continue, instead accepting a Graphic Arts apprenticeship, putting the brushes and pencils down for almost 15 years. My passion for drawing and painting was re-ignited in 2008 and I haven’t stopped creating since.
My time in the graphic arts industry has provided a solid background in colour, composition and traditional printing techniques as the industry moved into the digital world.
I work from my studio in Hurstbridge, Victoria, predominantly in oils.
Veronica O’Leary
My paintings for this exhibition ‘Gather’ were made in my Tathra studio over the course of 2024 and 2025.
The flowers in the various still life arrangements are those I have gathered from my own bush garden and the gardens of friends.
I have painted these particular flowers because of their abundance, complexity and beauty. Flowers are important symbols of resilience and strength. The act of gathering flowers and arranging them into beautiful interior set ups with treasured objects offers to me as an artist, endless fields of painterly observation.
The domestic landscapes of flowers, foods and treasured objects measure moments in time, the days and seasons, and always the light as it touches the edges of forms, and dances in an interplay on the painted surface.
The collection of still life paintings is a diary of sorts – moments of the ordinary transformed into the extraordinary in the act of painting.
On for the month of September and officially Opening on Saturday 6th September at 2pm.
