Brooke Engledow

I was born in Port Macquarie, spending most of my childhood wandering around the farm with my dog or riding horses, swimming in local rivers and beaches. My mother would roll out butcher’s paper along the veranda, with crayons and paint,to keep me busy for hours.

I learned the saxophone and played both Jazz and classical, as a teen touring with orchestras and big bands and playing in a jazz quartet. I studied drawing at Julian Ashton’s and National Art School after school and more recently completed Digital Media and Fine Art Ceramics at Tafe.

My art is influenced by my love of the landscape but also my music as I was encouraged to have a varied repertoire so too, I embraced various styles and mediums in the pursuit of creativity. I love the challenge of new, thinking how to capture light on surfaces with colour and technique but also how the process of making influences the end result. In the last few years, I have had more time to concentrate on painting and ceramics . I find switching mediums keeps the energy fresh and relaxed.

While making ceramics I don’t like to get too bogged down with self-criticism and focus too heavily on detail or perfectionism and instead I embrace the quirky nature of the pottery wheel or glaze results. I like my pieces to have character and maybe some humour. In my paintings, colour texture and shape combine to have a resolved composition, like the chord progression of a jazz ballad.

My art making is a ritual of appreciation for the beauty of nature but also about allowing my own creative nature to develop along the journey towards accomplishment.