Lara and Piper visited Eaglehawk artist Bridie O’Toole at her exhibition in the Valentines Antiques building to chat about her art and ambitions.
Bridie and her sister Frankie exhibited their artwork in the Bendigo Open
Studios program earlier this year.
We arrived at Valentines to find that Bridie’s art was located in a lofty room upstairs. Upon entering we were bathed in peachy coloured light coming from the little windows that were tinted a sort of yellowy colour. Bridie’s colourful compositions contrasted with the stark yellow leaves from the trees outside the windows. The light shining through the windows set a backdrop of enchantment. The art was beautiful with an abundance of vibrant colour covering the walls. Each picture was special in its own way giving a glimpse of Bridie’s personality.
Bridie earliest memory was learning to colour. She recalls her mum being really artistic. Bridie and her sister grew up always having a good supply of textas and paints for colouring. She loved doing art in school and was perceived as the student who knew how to draw, and that was where her heart was. Her creative urge was so strong that every day she made new pieces of art and did anything that was creative such as making mosaics.
“I always felt that I was good at art”.
Bridie ended up in Bendigo from Mildura to be near her sister who lives in Eaglehawk. Frankie was featured in Issue 42 of the 3556 magazine earlier this year. Together the sisters began exploring the art world in Bendigo. Bridie’s sister Frankie aspires to be a full time artist and make a living out of it. Bridie on the other hand just likes to do it for fun. It’s more of a creative outlet for her. It’s just something she enjoys.
Bridie’s favourite subject matter is girls and her inspiration comes from images found on Instagram. She doesn’t get ideas from the old artists or masters and doesn’t paint from real life, rather relying on digital sources. Bridie started out doing plain faces, but recently she is getting more into backgrounds.
“I always draw girls for some reason so everything pretty much has a girl in it”.
For a while Bridie was painting girls on birds. She moves through subject matter regularly. Presently her focus is to return to her love of painting as she has been immersed in digital art for quite a while. Bridie’s latest pieces are digital collage made from many images. She collects images and patterns and collates them before arranging them into her own
composition.
“I might go and collect a whole heap of eyes, noses and mouths, not so much hair, and stick them all together”.
Bridie then prints her artwork using an inkjet printer and high quality paper before framing them herself. Bridie aims to make her art affordable so that people can purchase and enjoy original art.
We loved meeting Bridie and experiencing her beautiful art and talking to her. We recommend that you visit her facebook page or pop into Valentines in View Street.
Instagram: totooleydoodles
