Fiona O'Byrne

Fiona O’Byrne is an Australian artist who paints delicate still lives and portraits, using her immediate domestic environment to create vignettes of quiet simplicity and classical harmony. Employing mainly traditional methods of oil on canvas overlaid on panelboard, the artist creates rich tonal paintings that are marked by sparse, carefully arranged compositions.
 

Her subject matter focuses on interiors and her familial life – vases with freshly picked flowers from her local neighborhood, portraits of her family and friends.  There is a quiet intimacy in this domestic realism; she distils the essence of commonplace objects and highlights their beauty and poignancy.  Her artworks could be seen as meditations on our daily life; a humble celebration of the ordinary.
 

Based in Melbourne, the artist grew up in regional Victoria, moving to the city to study Landscape Architecture.  Working as a Landscape Architect, as well as raising two children, she didn’t arrive to painting until her mid-thirties, when she decided to enrol at an evening oil painting class at the Victorian Artists’ Society.  A few years later she went on to study under portrait artist Lee Machelak.  
 

Since then Fiona has held three solo exhibitions and has been a finalist in a number of prominent portrait prizes, including The Lester Prize and the Shirley Hannon National Portrait Award.  As well as continuing to practice as a landscape architect in Melbourne, the painter also teaches art workshops with friend and fellow painter Lana Daubermann.
 

Fiona is very excited to be back teaching in the space that her artistic journey began!