Illustrator & Painter
Dr. Barbara Cheshire is a visual artist and educator.
Barbara’s work explores the vicissitudes in life and happenings through conceptual principles and uses symbolism in her work.
Barbara has been awarded Winner of the Townsville 150th Celebration Portrait Award for her piece "I Remember".
You are invited to look through Barbara's Galleries and see some of her amazing art works.
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Loma Thompson
Portrait of legendary Townsville volunteer Loma Thompson wins art prize
After Loma Thompson hitchhiked to Townsville on her honeymoon with husband Fred, the North Queensland town was never the same again.
Born in Lismore, Victoria in 1922, Ms Thompson was, and still is, a passionate activist for social justice, a fiery advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights and a leader within the women's movement.
Now, at 94 years of age, she has been recognised as the face of the Townsville 150th Anniversary Portrait Painting Award.
Ms Thompson's daughter-in-law Dr Barbara Cheshire won the $10,000 prize with her painting of Ms Thompson, titled "I Remember".
Dr Cheshire said her oil artwork was inspired by her desire to encode Ms Thompson's experience as a community legend.
"I'm trying to communicate the love we feel for her, her energy and her pose, to remember all the things she'd done for the community — so, it's a historical piece," Dr Cheshire said.
Barbara Cheshire
An Eye’s View – Self Portrait 2020
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
115 x 67 cm
This painting signifies a journey of learned respect. Respect for the resilience of the human body and mind as, with the help of experts, it battles unwelcome invasions by foreign cancer tumours.
Along the experiential challenge of a colourless black and toned vision, sight goes through various stages of lost and found. Each time as images are returned in colour and form, a deep gratitude and amazement develop an appreciation of our world and life through a positive, meditative mindset.
I am now a full-time practising artist. In hindsight, my artistic life started when drawing in the dirt of my father's blacksmith shop. Since then each of life's developmental stages has potentially contributed to my artistic life.
These stages include pharmaceutical, art, teaching, theological studies and becoming a partner and parent to three daughters.
My love of experimenting and sharing techniques to signify each experiential stage slowly developed and is obvious in the painting for this submission as the fight to retain my sight continues.
Northbound:
Radical Optimism in an Uncertain World
Watercolour Pencil and Binder medium on canvas 70cm x 100 cm
Author Beatrice Bruteau comments that radical optimism is our deepest response to the immense and threatening challenges of our contemporary world.
Personally, it is the creative power of goodness that sustains us in our confrontations with the changed and challenging circumstances we find ourselves and expresses the idea that our growing global interdependence can help us to sense the reality of each person within the unity of shared life and thus be motivated to act in the interests of the larger community.