Dianne

Concept

Lou is an Australian based Artist using mixed media on canvas and linen. She started exploring colour at age 5 through the a local colouring-in contest winning week after week.

Lou was taught by her dad, a self-taught artist who was diagnosed with a brain tumour when she was 2 and died when she was 8. Lou continued to draw and paint and studied art well into her late 20s. In her thirties, she dusted off her dad’s old paintings from under the family home she grew up in and came to see that even though they had been painting years apart; their signatures used to sign paintings were exactly the same. They are a simple notation of ‘SHELDON’ surname in capital letters.

In a nod to her dad's humour and to honour the time they spent ‘finding the hook’ in Geoff "Jeff" Hook's regular cartoons when she was a little girl, you will find (if you look hard enough) her dad's first initials “RA” (Robin Arthur) in each of her paintings.

Today, Lou sells paintings all around Australia and the world to private homes and businesses. Her works have been sent to Sweden, UK, America, Egypt, Dubai, Singapore, Germany and Luxembourg. She has received commissions from KiisFM in Sydney, Green Art Gallery (Dubai) as well as various construction companies and Interior Designers around Australia. She has had pieces on The Block and '60 minutes' (Australia).

"The inspiration for each painting comes from a gut reaction and instinct to an abstract interpretation of the world I live in. With my portraits, I connect with each and every person I paint, without ever meeting them. Something in a photo will instantly jump out at me and I see the final painting in my mind well before I even pick up a brush. Painting is second nature to me. Rather than it being a thing I do, it is a place I go. Like a pair of old slippers, once the brush is in my hand it feels like home. It is as familiar as breathing.