I was 6 years old and in the first Grade in my birth country of Germany. Our art activity was to draw a gingerbread man … when I had finished my teacher grabbed it, showed it to the whole class and said: “This is the worst picture of a gingerbread man that I have ever seen, and it won’t be going up on the wall”. My work began here….

I was 8 years old when we moved to Cape Town, South Africa.

A whole new sensory experience compared to Germany! As I grew I drew inspiration from the colours and environment around me and enjoyed painting African abstracts, which I displayed at our End of school year art exhibition.

In 2002, at the tender age of 22, we moved to Oman and I gratefully absorbed the beauty and vast spaces around us. I created a few Middle East inspired paintings, which was also the first time I included clay on canvas. I enjoyed bringing the paintings to life with the extra texture of the clay and soon had commission requests. My work was displayed and sold in local art galleries which was very exciting! 

In 2007 we welcomed our beautiful daughter and in 2009 we moved back to Cape Town. Between work and motherhood my artwork fell into a bit of a lull, though I did manage to pick up a paintbrush occasionally.