HER work has been described as a bit Gauguin, a little bit Ken Done, and a bit Alice In Wonderland, with a nod to Jenny Kee.
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Anne Chibnall’s bold, energetic and bright floral expressions are anything but dull.
Chibnall, who has down syndrome, has never let disability stand in her way from expressing eye-popping and thoroughly gorgeous colour explorations of the floral beauty she finds either in her home town of Ballarat – or in botanical books at the local library.
After studying art at BRACE Education and Training, Chibnall has been painting for about 12 years, and has worked from a studio at Lake Learmonth with art mentor Sarah Lloyd since 2011.
Chibnall’s career is now on the rise. She exhibited at Learmonth last year alongside fellow artist Tim Sedgwick and has also worked in a number of collaborative exhibitions.
Now, she is holding her first solo exhibition at Backspace Gallery in Camp Street – with a stunning array of sunflowers, dahlias and daffodils – mainly with acrylic on canvas.
The work – warming and sunny – brings bold splashes of light to Ballarat’s Winterlude festival.
“I love flowers as well as colour. I see a flower that I quite like and I draw it up and then paint it,” Chibnall said.
“I just love painting because it’s a passion.”
Chibnall also said she loves the way art could tell stories.
“Flowers sometimes give people love. They have different meanings, different stories,” she said.
Mentor Sarah Lloyd said Chibnall had been creative all her life, and had more recently focused on studio work encompassing drawing, painting, screen printing, stamps and mono prints.
“Increasingly she works with nature, flowers, landscape, windmills and leaves – things we go on trips to observe, bringing back lots of drawings and photos to work on back in the studio,” she said.
“Anne is excited by and relates very strongly to colour and bold lines. These are two very important tools in her art. She uses them boldly and confidently.”
Anne’s Fix It Up Native Creative Creation exhibition is on now until July 10 at the Backspace Gallery. Hand-made cards and tea towels with Chibnall’s prints and stamps are also available for purchase.