I’ve always been experimental with my artwork. Learning to make watercolour paint from all Australian materials has made a big change for me and my art. Working with local ochres and minerals is a very different experience from using commercial art materials, it's much more immersive. In recent years I have started spending time on Country, painting Tree Portraits and Country Scapes, this allows me to immerse myself in my art, close to the natural world from which my Mob comes from. I paint from the heart and want to record the beauty of the Central Victorian and Southern NSW bush. It is important for me to capture the feeling that comes from spending time on Country. This painting is of trees on the bank overlooking a misty morning scape. I can almost feel the ancestors and spirits sitting on that bank and moving about in the bush.

Artist Bio:

Lorraine, a proud Yorta Yorta woman/artist and multi award winner, has always been experimental with her craft. Her art works are made with her own hand-sourced and hand-prepared earth materials, creating pigments from ground Ochres, Minerals and local acacia gum. Lorraine says that having her hands in ochre, many thousands of years in the making, connects her to the Ancestors. Her creative response to Country is in the form of working with the earth in a contemporary exploration of an age old medium where she uses materials from Country as an inspiring art medium which leads her to tell the story of her journey in an artistic urge coming from ancestral memory. Lorraine’s practice includes having developed a recipe for making watercolour paints (to an age old European recipe used by Masters of Watercolour) but using all Australian ingredients. Lorraine is a multimedia artist and works in painting, clay work and weaving. Her woven works represents the woven baskets and mats made by her Yorta Yorta ancestors and used in their everyday life. “Weaving has become an integral part of my everyday life and has become integrated into my art practice”

In recent years Lorraine has started painting what she refers to as Tree Portraits and Country Scapes, this allows her to be on Country doing her art, close to the natural world from which she comes. Lorraine paints from the heart and wants to record the beauty of the Central Victorian and Southern NSW bush where her mob originates from. It is important for Lorraine to capture the feeling that comes from spending time on Country.

“Working with and on Country links me with my Ancestors, and my Country is calling me home. A sense of peace and timelessness descends, it moves me toward deep listening. Gulpa Ngawal - Deep Listening (in Yorta Yorta language).”