Local Artist Series // Carley Bourne

Who are you and what do you create?
I am an emerging artist living on the Sunshine Coast. I finally decided to take a leap of faith and turn a personal hobby of years into a profession and have not looked back since!  I create mostly large Acrylic artworks on canvas, with the theme being tropical, floral, and botanical. 

What materials and techniques do you use?
I use acrylic paints/ acrylic paint pens, firstly creating the background, building the layers in sometimes a loose watercolour technique, then mixing in thicker paint styles.  I build these layers up with marks, shapes and colour, then turn to painted or drawn illustrations to give real depth and high detailed patterns or forms.

What kind of inspirations go into your work?
I love textures, shapes, marks and colours of the botanical and floral world, living on the Sunshine Coast I am lucky to have this in abundance! 

In what space do you like to create most?
I am fully set up in a garage studio space, but I have also painted in a gallery studio in front of the public which enjoy.  Sometimes there is nothing better than moving outside too, my garden is quite tropical full of Palmtrees and wonderful foliage. Noosa National Park is my go to when I want to take photo references for specific plant species.  

What has been your favourite or most important work to date?
I am connected to all the pieces I create on a personal level, so I guess every piece is quite important to me. When I commence a new painting, I try not to have any real preconceived ideas, I like to go where it takes me, intuitively.  This really helps in creating some unique artworks, that no one else or even myself could really produce again, but still have my particular style to them.   

To see more of Carley’s work, head to her website or Instagram.