From my studio in Canberra, Australia, I paint intimate, ethereal pockets of forest that explore the idea of energetic connection, and that stability, gentleness and beauty can stand amid unpredictability and the tangle of life, death and decay, and growth.
I want the subtle layers, rich colours and crisp verticals to pull the viewer into a space where chaos and clarity co-exist; and where the sense of physical body melts into a sense of energetic connection.
These are my “cosy wild places”, offering the restorative nurturing of the ancestral home – the forest floor – and a touch of the freedom owned by the wilderness which rejects control.
ARTIST BIO
Victoria works as a full-time artist from her studio in Canberra. She draws inspiration especially from her lifelong connection with Australia’s dry woodlands, and the contrasts of vibrant colours in our birds and wildflowers set against the muted, earthy tones of the Australian bush palette.
Also a writer, Victoria is a storyteller at heart, building partly-imagined worlds through gentle layers of organic marks in oil paint, ink and wash that invite the viewer in, just as, when someone speaks softly, you lean in to listen.
Paint is added or removed, building until this tangle of forest understorey is formed enough to hold the viewer. Final flecks of colour are allowed to skip across the surface like sunlight on leaf, web or tiny wing.
After more than 20 years of practice and exhibiting ad hoc in galleries across the ACT, NSW and Tasmania, Victoria’s journey to full-time artist accelerated when her husband began his own journey with a life-threatening cancer. His is a miracle story, but the experience taught Victoria to live with uncertainty, embracing the present as the only reality. Art was her path back to the heart from the thinking-space of coping, becoming integral to Victoria’s new way of being in the world: feeling the present as deeply as possible, digging past the sense of the physical body into the realm of energetic connection, where resides eternal love and divinity.
Victoria is also a novelist and editor, with a former career in communications and adult education.
(Formerly Vicki/Victoria Collins.)
Victoria’s work is currently shown at Splatter Gallery, Dirty Jane’s Canberra, Gioia Wall Art, The Online Art Gallery, Bluethumb online gallery, Grounded Moruya. Her work was featured in Channel 9’s Space Invaders home renovation show 2026 (season 6 episode 6).
