Vanessa Maver

I’ve always painted, and I’ve always drawn from a really
young age. While other kids were out playing, I was
always sitting at the kitchen table painting or drawing.
I studied design and went on to work in the design industry
and advertising agencies. I was doing branding and then
I studied fine art as well. Painting was always something I did in the background, not something I really thought I was going to do professionally, or long term. I had this idea in the back of my head that when I retire, I’ll become this great painter. And then when I had my son, three years ago, I just thought it’s now or never. How can I make this a bigger part of my life, and started to incorporate more things like a sketchbook, keeping notes, and painting canvases and began by getting my drawing skills up again.

My artistic style is really based around nature and still life.
It’s not super realistic. I just take inspiration from, obviously, my house plants, and just things that are going on around me. I found that when I was in isolation, with lock downs, that I was starting to really think about get togethers with friends and dinner parties and picnics. It just made me start to think how can I start to bring this into my art? So even though I started with house plants, I moved on to how can I incorporate other things into my paintings? I started taking photographs of my plants from top down, just because I wanted to look at bringing in a more shapes into my artworks and rethinking the compositions. That’s when I started to think if I brought in glasses and plates and things like that it can start to look like the before and after scene of those parties.

Dabbling in abstract art is something I started to do
because I was trying to loosen up. Previously the lines always had to be perfect, and things had to line up perfectly. But as I’ve immersed myself more into my art, I’ve realised that’s what’s stopped me all these years from really getting involved in it. What was holding me back was the idea that everything that I painted had to be perfect. I would literally not show anyone what I was doing, no one was allowed to look at it until it was perfect. So, then I would only do a single painting every six months. So abstract art has helped to put me at ease and put my art out there, particularly on social media. If you look back three years ago you can see I was quite nervous, but now my attitude is to just get it out there.

I also try and do workshops, and they are a great way
I can build up my creative freedom. I’ve done quite a few
abstract commissions too, and I really enjoy the variety. It
means at night I can focus on my more illustrative art, and
when I have spare time, I can go crazy with some abstract
art. But it’s been an eye opener learning abstract art, it’s not easy to get a composition to look the way you want it to look. Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t paint for so long, and now I can’t imagine it not being part of my life. I can’t imagine staying up late during the week and doing anything else. I’ve met some nice people too along the way. I always say, I’m not trying to be a fine artist, I’m just trying to bring some colour and joy to people’s walls.