Heather Towns

'Art is embedded in me, like a tattoo on my soul'- Zulu

In the beginning....
Achieving her greatest dream Heather was accepted to art school. She had been drawing since she was old enough to hold a piece of charcoal from the backyard incinerator and draw on the footpath. Heather was totally delighted to attend art school and everyday was better than the last. After graduating she worked as a graphic designer and a few years later she set up her own studio. Operating under the business name of Value Added Design, Heather was able to provide for herself and her two children for while also painting.

Now….
Observe. Dissect. Interpret.

Now living and working at Cape Paterson Heather Towns, known widely by her nickname Zulu, aims to approach each piece of artwork from a different angle. She tries hard NOT to follow her art school training, heavily stooped in traditional painting techniques, of perspective, shadows, hues, colour wheels etc, that are commonly the key rules in a painters life.

Zulu wishes to rebuild and relook at everything she paints. She sets the rules of observe, dissect & interpret, to everything she sees. She firstly observes, the person, objects or landscape that she is looking at ... really see it, in patterns, in shapes and everyway, but the way it really is.

Then she dissects the parts, the interesting, the weak areas, the colour feel etc. Then the hard bit…interpret the whole in a new and creative way, but not totally abstract - well sometimes totally abstract, but often with the whole image broken into a series of patterns and rich colour plains, pushing and pulling at the shapes and fighting on the edges of colours.

Four recent exhibitions at The Palm House in the Botanic Gardens, next door to the Opera House, have been successful. Zulu’s won many awards at the ASPI (Artist’s Society of Phillip Island) many exhibition over the past 7 years. Zulu also won the George Hicks Foundation Contemporary Art Prize 2018 at VAS ( Victorian Artists’s Society) and received many other Winning and Highly Commended awards. More of her work can be seen at the VAS in East Melbourne on a regular bases and at her studio/gallery in Cape Paterson Victoria.

Next...
Always wanting to try something new, Zulu continues to study, is a regular participant at life drawing and portrait painting and a painter at Artback. Heather also performs with tribal bellydance troupe Womanjah and Tribal Charm. At present she is working on another solo exhibition, and opens her Studio/Gallery in December/January each year.