| Heather Jean Towns - 1947 Achieving her dream and being accepted to art school, was the true beginning for this girl who had been drawing since she was old enough to hold a piece of charcoal from the backyard incinerator & draw on the footpath. Much against her parents wishes, 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. Throughout the next 30 years Heather was still driven with the need to create her own images just for herself, not meeting other’s desires or commercial application. So she continued to paint, design and create anything that she needed or spirited her mind and hands. But Heather was hunted by a vision she had when she was 7 years old, laying on her back on freshly cut grass & watching the clouds. She dreamt of tropical islands, of smiling faces and palm trees, unaware of the destiny that was to guide her some of her happiest times. An unknown force guided her to tropical climates where she found true smiles with local people in these distant places.
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Fiji was on the agenda, and become the place where dreams came true. Heather had a beautiful bure on the beach in a village on the island of Waya in Fiji. Never had she been so happy and this was reflected in the images and style that is now Heathers’ trade mark. Zulu, as she is know to many, works with flat graphic images and uses a beautiful French acrylic paint that retains it’s magnificent rich pigments. This style of painting comes from a love & study of American Indian, African, Aboriginal and Islander, art. She paints her images in a form of layers and chooses to forget perspective, preferring to let the art stay free spirited. Heather sees life as patterns and rhythms of colour and shape. In the last 10 years she has taken this style into tapestry and also now onto fabrics. Lino cutting and printing is now bringing to life some of the ideas she had in the print room at art school. Heather’s work is about celebrating life, celebrating learning, celebrating different cultures, and about always being open to look at things differently. About the search for happiness through creating fun with images, music, dance, taste and colour. Always wanting to try something new Heather continues to study, is a regular participant at life drawing and a painter at Artback every year. Travelling often over the past five years Heather inspiration is fueled in places such as, Fiji, Mexico, Jamaica, Africa, Zanzibar, Dubai, Egypt, Turkey, and the next adventure will hopefully be heading off to Morocco and West Africa. ‘Great minds think differently’ |
Previous showings 1950’s Entrant in general Art shows 1960’s Selling folio pieces from art school 1984 Williamstown Art Gallery 1995 Morland City Council 1998 Surrey Hills, open studio exhibition 2000 St Kilda, solo exhibition 2001 Guadalajara, Mexico 2002 Surrey Hills, open studio exhibition 2002 Yalobi, Fiji 2003 Gallery Ten Eleven, solo exhibition 2005 She Exhibition 2005 Carma Cohuna Celebrations, solo exhibition 2006 Boheimian Rapsody exhibition |
