Penelope Oates

Penelope Oates Biography

Penelope has had an extensive and varied career in the arts spanning a period of some 30 years. She completed a degree in Fine Arts in Sydney at COFA at a young age which was followed shortly by a degree in Stage and Costume design which she completed at the highly prestigious acting school, NIDA. She worked for several years through to her thirties in Sydney as a designer, concept illustrator and model maker before finally completing a Diploma of Teaching in Visual Arts which has allowed her to finance her foray into her own art practice.

Tody Penelope works from her studio in rural Grose Vale in the lower Blue Mountains of NSW, where she lives with her furniture designer/maker husband Darren Oates and one cat and one dog.

Penelope Oates Description

Penelope’s elegant paintings are characterized by a layered and textural approach. Her work is an organic and beautiful series of natural forms and silhouettes that merge the delineation between land, sea and sky.

Inspiration is drawn from Penelope’s experiences and memory. She references changing colours and textures of landscapes and has a strong connection to the works of 19th Century metaphysical poet Keats whose poetry expresses the notion of being able to transcend our negative experiences of the world by contemplating upon ‘a thing of beauty’ In this sense her works reflects moods, feelings and memories about landscapes with the deliberate absence of any human figurative forms, preferring to conjure the primordial essence of the  landscape.

Her technical approach to practice is layered with a mix of coloured inks, acrylic and a more recent addition of a soldering iron which allows her to work back into a timber surface for both her paintings and semi-sculptural forms. The use of this heated tool enables her to reveal colours beneath the top surface of her mixed media giving her works a distinctive tapestry-like appearance. She considers herself to be more a mark maker than a painter as such as this element of her work seems to have become an all-encompassing and partly meditative part of her practice.

Penelope Oates Resumé

Selected Exhibition History

Picturesque: Group Show, Braemar Gallery, Springwood ,NSW

Summer at the Edge: Group show, The Edge Gallery Katoomba Nov-April 2019

Floating World/Solo Show: Yuga Gallery Café, Glebe October 2018

Hawkesbury Art Fair/ Selected artist, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, Nov 2018

Open Studio Weekend, Hawkesbury Art and Artisans Trail, August 2018

Belle Property Art Prize, Bowral Art Gallery 2018

Still Life in the Landscape/Group Show: The Milk Factory Gallery 2018

Shifting Perspectives/Duo Show: Gallery 504 Balmain   2018

Open Studio/ Hawkesbury Art and Artisan’s Trail   2017

Contours/ Duo Show: The Milk Factory Gallery 2017

Hawkesbury Art Fair: Hawkesbury Regional Gallery/ Selected Artist 2017

Xmas in July/ Group Exhibition: Gallery 504 Balmain  2017

Freefall/Group Show: The Ferry Artists Gallery 2017

Elements/ Group Show: Ferry Artists Gallery 2017

Celebrations/Group Show: Ferry Artists Gallery 2016

Hawkesbury Art Fair:  Hawkesbury Regional Gallery 2016

Finishing Touches/ Group Show: Hunter St Gallery 2016

Naked/ Group Show: Ferry Artists Gallery 2016

Barns/Group show: Stan Steven’s Gallery, Hawkesbury Regional Gallery 2016

Hunters Hill Pop Up Artist 2016

Florabundance/ Group Show: Ferry Artist’s Gallery 2016

Bellbird Studios Open Trail Weekend 2016

Artist’s Choice/ Group Show: Ferry Artists Gallery 2015

Mergence/Duo Show: Gaffa Gallery Sydney 2015

Expressions in Ink/Solo: Sassafras Creek Gallery  2014/15

Peter Howard Publications: Illustrator 2004-2007