Nathalie Anne

Nathalie Anne is an award-winning artist whose work meanders and blurs the line between traditional watercolour technique and contemporary expression.

Nathalie Anne with her First Prize Winning Drawing Blake Wulfgang Behrendorff in the 2025 Edward Heffernan Memorial Drawing Prize

Her practice is a poetic dance between form and fluidity, intuition and discipline…an ever-evolving journey, guided by a deep love of Beauty in all of its manifestations.

Nathalie Anne painting in her studio

Originally trained as an Oil Painter and Sculptor, Anne holds a Fine Arts degree with a double major in Painting and Sculpture which she completed in 2001. She had since founded a jewellery label in the early 2000s and throughout the years of raising her two children, had co-owned a photographic studio, a bespoke children’s couture line with her mother, and later freelanced in the areas of Styling, Hair and Makeup.

Sunlight Captured in Rind

Watercolour on paper

It was whilst exploring her bespoke couture line that she fell back upon painting on silk. This experience reignited her love for fluid mediums and ultimately led her to watercolour. Each of these chapters reflected a time in her life with every experience to date, adding depth and nuance to her current work.

Je Suis Qui Je Suis (I am who I am)

Watercolour on panel

Her early career saw Anne exploring areas in fashion and styling: "These areas came so naturally to me. Like breathing. It was something innate…an expression that was inspired and instilled in me by my mother. She was a dressmaker and for as early as I could remember, imbued a strong sense of personal style and an eye for finer things. She taught me to see beauty in the details: the feel of a fabric, the fall of a cloth, the exquisite shapes of a design. Line, form, balance, shape, texture, underpinned by the laws of colour harmony. It all created a kind of tactile poetry in understanding the fundamentals of design".

Louis Arnaud

Watercolour on panel

Her father on the other hand, a skilled draughtsman, loved drawing and as a child had developed a strong practice in that area. His inquisitive, curious nature had him develop a keen eye for how and why things worked. Documenting what he saw in pencil was his way of breaking down the Principles and Laws of nature.

Echoes of her Light

Watercolour on panel

“He would spend hours dissecting flowers and recording it, rendering, shading and sketching it down on paper. This would extend to other subject matter and without consciously realising, he was exploring the foundations and principles of design. perspective, balance, scale, rhythm, proportion, composition…rendering form and shape to create 3-dimensional representations of the world around him".

Naïade

Watercolour on panel

"This all brought me a clear awareness in the fine skills of drawing and ignited in me a passion in a culmination of experience on my own artistic journey. This inclination was nurtured by both and fed with unwavering patience, support and attention; forming the blueprint to my art”

Richard

Watercolour on panel

With her early years spent in Mauritius…the lush tropical landscapes, its intoxicating, vivid, living colours and vibrant culture; all left an indelible mark on Anne's visual language: “It shaped something intrinsic in me and I find myself tracing a thread back to that landscape and realise now just how deeply it lives in my work.” Creativity was never a novelty in Anne’s childhood. It was a way of life.

In Pursuit of Bianca

Watercolour on panel

Her lifelong fascination with beauty, often in the mundane, the forgotten or the overlooked now echoes in her figurative work. The human form and faces captivate her attention as her preferred subject matter, whispering stories untold and moments suspended in time…where beauty is not just seen, but deeply felt.

Shaken not Stirred

Watercolour on panel

“I love the texture and feel of the lyrical line. It carries with it such expression and intention. I often find myself getting lost in the pursuit of the most honest interpretation of what I see. It’s the foundation of all my work—like the invisible thread in a garment, it holds everything together, allowing colour, movement, and emotion to flow freely around it.” 

This sculpture was part of the 2022 VAS Mavis Little Artist of the Year Award Exhibition

Photo credit: Fiafia Photography

I know her Inside Out

Awarded second prize for sculpture in the Contemporary Exhibition at the Victorian Artists Society 2023