Sixteen months ago Marce King left their full-time job to focus on art, and knows it takes a whole extra skillset to make it to a big stage like New York.

In September King will be flying across the world for their first international exhibition and they are more than a little excited to share the work with a new audience.

King grew up in Bendigo, spent a little time in Melbourne and has now been living in Ballarat for the past 12 years.

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Originally they came to Ballarat for a work position with Federation University but now they work on their art full-time.

King said they have always been into drawing, describing themselves as a "stock standard artist".

"I have always drawn since I was really little," King said.

"Then I tried to take as many classes as I could in high school and then I went on to university and studied there."

King spent 20 years fitting art practice around other facets of life.

Now they are working out how to be a full-time artist, a few things have been surprising.

"I actually thought that I would get sick of drawing or even sick of doing art," King said.

Instead they have found there are simply not enough hours in the day to get everything done, even if it is their full focus.

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"I could do it 24/7 if I did not need to sleep," King said.

"You sort of think you are going to do your passion full-time ... and get bored of it.

"But no I am not bored yet and I just cannot even picture being bored."

King said the hardest thing about being in the studio full-time was you spent a lot of time by yourself with your work.

They said they sometimes missed the incidental socialisation that happened in the office.

"You take it for granted ... talking to someone about what you watched on TV that night," King said.

"You miss the watercooler conversations that you might have in another workplace."

Despite the isolating work, King said having a strong artistic community in Ballarat helped keep human connections alive.

"I try to meet up with local artists at least once a week just to stay connected to other people," they said.

"The group of local artists are just getting bigger and bigger.

"I feel like there are a lot of people coming from Melbourne to base themselves here, because it is a good lifestyle."

King said Ballarat had the perfect qualities of an artist town.

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"Everything is close and you are not spending money on travel and stuff like that," they said.

"It is a really good work-life balance and a great town to be an artist in."

The road to becoming an international artist involves a lot more business skills than one might think.

"It is a bit of a hassle, you have to get yourself out there, connect and network with people," King said.

They will be exhibiting their work at New York's Super Fine Art Fair in September.

"I try and engage with consultants from all over the place to get different sort of ideas on my art practice," King said.

It was these consultants that pointed them in the direction of the art fair.

"They said it would be a good one for me to introduce myself to the New York market with," King said.

Their work mainly focuses on people and telling stories through portraiture.

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"What I enjoy most is using that form to actually tell the story of the subject," King said.

"It is not just a random face on the wall, it is nice if there is a story behind that face."

Right now King is working on telling the stories of people in the LGBTQIA+ community.

"I just want to celebrate the people in that community and just sort of make them more visible to everyone else," they said.

King is looking forward to sharing their work with a new type of audience while in America.

"Thousands of people will come through in four days, so that is going to be a really great," they said.

Sometimes the most pivotal part of making it as an artist is to constantly be putting yourself out there.

King said sometimes that could be difficult, or people tended to have many questions about what it meant to be a full-time artist.

"It is very much ingrained in our culture to not really talk about stuff that you are good at," they said.

Hopefully this artist catches an art enthusiast's eye.

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