Local to Far North Queensland, Adrian McGlusky’s renaissance style techniques often emulate the old masters. Largely self taught, Adrian has emerged as a serious artist who has in recent years studied with such great teachers as Michael Winters and Godwin Bradbear. Each of Adrian’s paintings is executed on Belgian linen in the finest quality oils. His desire is always to assail the senses of his audience with beauty. To bring a sense of peace and pleasure into the lives of all those who are fortunate enough to view his work.

Angie Denahy laughs a lot and sees life as a celebration. These feelings are expressed in each of her paintings. Her artwork is an eclectic tapestry woven with humour and joy that is guaranteed to light up any room. Angie’s work is whimsical and distinctive and the sheer joy of each piece has won her recognition both nationally and internationally.

A photo-realist, Anita pays meticulous attention to detail. Her preferred medium is acrylic on canvas and her bold colours bring a diversity of subject matter to life. Anita is mostly known for her flowers but paints a variety of subjects. Her paintings grace the walls of many private homes and public institutions throughout Australia and overseas. One of the most well known fans, and collectors, of Anita’s work is the actor, Benjamin Bratt

Betty Mahoney is proudly one of Reef Gallery’s oldest and most popular artists. Living in Victor Harbour, South Australia she travels to Northern Australia regularly to visit her family and spend her days recreating the serenity and the depth of the Australian bush and tropical coastline in oils. Using her palette knife she creates spectacular yet peaceful works that take the viewer on a 3-dimensional excursion of waterways and beaches, billabongs and paperbark scrub. Betty paints because she loves to paint and her lifelong success is testament to her immense talent.

Betty’s work is included in many significant private and corporate collections both in Australia and overseas and over the years, she has won an array of awards and has a significant number of solo exhibitions to her credit.

David Mackay Harrison’s languid nude sculptures possess freedom of form and flow of movement. His stately animals find a perfect balance between stylization and realism. Every one of David’s sculptures is executed with amazing technical precision. Using the solidness of bronze and a mottled surface he achieves a variation in light and creates a textured surface of each smooth sculpture. Each piece is aesthetically beautiful and demands to be gazed at. David Mackay Harrison has exhibited widely throughout Australia and his work is in constant demand from discerning buyers both in Australia and overseas.

David Mellor is one of Australia’s most acclaimed artists for depicting the big fish of the sea. His ability to depict marlin and sailfish flying through the water has his artwork sought after by buyers from all over the world. Using his favourite medium of oil, David captures the ever changing moods of the sea and her creatures. David Mellor’s paintings have graced the cover of the national US Marlin Magazine and transparencies of his artwork have been reproduced onto shirts and uniforms for the biggest game fish tournaments in the world.

David Stacey has become one of Northern Australia’s most renowned artists.
He has developed his own unique and distinctive style of interpreting the landscape of North Queensland and has been instrumental in showcasing the region’s unique diversity since the early 1980s. David Stacey is at the forefront of the environmental arts movement. A collection of his refined pen and ink sketches appear in the book A Walk in the Rainforest and various other publications such as scientific journals and university textbooks. His paintings are displayed throughout Far North Queensland resorts and form part of many private and public collections including the prestigious BHP Collection.

Dean Vella is an impressionist artist whose paintings invoke feelings of spontaneous joy in all who have the pleasure of viewing them. Drawing upon the vibrant landscape of the tropics and the dry Australian bush, his bold use of colour and texture create a visual experience that is both powerful and lingering. Listed as one of the 100 artists most worth watching by Australian Art Collector Magazine in 1999, Dean’s work has drawn worldwide recognition. He is the only western artist whose work is hung in the Guangdong Museum in China. Asked to describe his work, he simply says “art has no rules. Colour has no boundaries.”

Fiona was born in Dundee in Scotland. Encouraged by her father, cartoonist of “Dennis the Menace” from the Beano comic, she graduated with a BA Hons Degree in Fine Art. After graduating Fiona went to work in London where she continued painting and sculpting from her studio and was a part of many London gallery exhibitions. At the same time Fiona had a part time job sculpting at Madame Tussauds Waxworks Museum.
Fiona subsequently married and moved to Australia where the environment and its vibrant colours became a major influence on her work.
Fiona lives with her family in country Queensland and works every day from her home studio producing amazing sculptures and paintings that come to life under her talented hands.

Foot Young is regarded as one of Australia’s most distinguished and notable environmentally motivated sculptors. Working primarily with marble quarried from Central Queensland, the focal subject of his work is marine animals. His sculptures range from life size to mini versions. His largest original marble sculpture of a breaching Humpback Whale took over 2 years to complete. Foot Young’s sculptures are instantly recognisable and each one is signed with a footprint as a guarantee of authenticity. His amazing pieces form part of very significant collections worldwide including those of famed environmentalist, Jean Michael Cousteau, Actor Don Johnson, The Aga Khan, His Highness Sultan Nahyan of Saudi Arabia and many other collectors.

Hayley Gillespie has been a professional artist since her late teens. Growing up in London, her artistry was expressed in a variety of guises from theatre set design, to painting huge murals for the Royal parks and decorating children’s furniture.
In 2003 after moving to Australia, Hayley decided to concentrate on canvas. Her lively and colourful acrylic and oil paintings take the viewer on a wonderful imaginery journey. Each work is a story and much of the material for these stories is collected from Hayley’s young son, Noah who fills her days with tales of experiences from school and in the playground. Hayley’s work appeals to children of all ages!

Ian Stephens is a gifted local artist who has been inspired by the natural beauty of tropical north Queensland. His acute eye for detail is the hallmark of his highly acclaimed paintings which are continually sought after by buyers from all over the world. Ian Stephens won his first art award at the age of 11, and has continued to win them ever since. He has travelled widely throughout Europe studying art and many varied painting techniques. Ian’s depictions of the rainforest, the coastline and the area’s iconic Queenslander style homes have made him an artist whose popularity continues to grow.

James Petersen is achieving a growing reputation for his work in ceramics. Living and working from his home studio in southern Queensland, James has developed a unique style in portraying Australian fauna in rough form and texture from clay, while at the same time producing a vulnerability in each creature. Each piece has a personality of its own and an early quality that seems to say it belongs to the land. James has achieved a solid reputation and been awarded a number of high profile public art commissions. His work is included in a number of public and private collections.

Since completing a Bachelor of Education in Visual Arts at the University of Melbourne in the mid 1990s, Jennifer’s parallel careers as artist and teacher have blossomed. In just a few short years, Jennifer has exhibited widely throughout Far North Queensland and Melbourne and won a number of prestigious awards. Jennifer’s formal training was in sculpture and the processes she learned now inform her two dimensional work, which is constructed via build up and cutting back of surfaces. Jennifer Valmadre’s artwork is totally unique, visually challenging and adaptable to a wide variety of home and business environments

Jim’s work is quirky, unique and colourful. It is basically impossible to look at a Jim Olsson painting and not smile. Each work brings the subjects to life. Jim’s “Banfield Series” depicting Ted and Bertha Banfield and their hermit like existence on Dunk Island in North Queensland have particularly won him national and international acclaim. Residing in southern Queensland, Jim’s imagination is matched only by the intensity of the colours that surround him making each signature work unique, vibrant and rich.

A well known and respected local artist, Julie Poulsen’s trademark is her loose painting style and the layering of paint to activate the overlay of colours. Working mostly toward the abstract, Julie is always pushing herself to discover more about herself and where she can take her artwork. Julie is a dedicated professional who, through her own admission, must paint every day. Julie’s unique and individual canvases form part of many private and public collections.

Kate Bergin’s paintings are centred on realistically rendered still life however with the high viewpoint, missing horizon line and choice of subject matter, they are very different. Her paintings are coolly intellectual with a clean, crisp feel to them. Kate has exhibited solely and in collaboration with other artists in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns. She is the recipient of a number of awards including the prestigious Theodur Urbach Award and Rosemounts “Art of Food” award and art prize. Kate Bergin’s paintings are coveted and collected by numerous private and public collectors across Australia and overseas.

Keith Naughton is one of Australia’s foremost outback painters. He has been listed in Australian art investment guides beside such greats as Namatjira, Boyd, Dickerson and Pro Hart. Keith’s journey has been diverse – from award winning designer and advertising creative director for major Australian and European clients to political cartoonist, book illustrator and of course, devoted outback observer and visual narrator. You don’t just look at a work of art when you view a Keith Naughton painting, you become involved in a story. Each of his mostly impressionistic works spin a yarn in earthy vibrant acrylics and oils. Keith’s outback images are quintessential and well appreciated by both private and public collectors. He has had numerous solo exhibitions and group shows and was the solo exhibitor in the Stockman’s Hall of Fame for 2 months in 2002.

Mark Stewart began drawing almost 25 years ago using the Old Masters as his reference. A series of expressive life drawings provided the key to his acceptance into the Bachelor of Fine Arts course at Monash University. In 1989 he began his art practice while earning a living from art related professions such as the painting of theatre and film sets. He later completed a post-graduate course in visual arts. Mark Stewart is a professional Postmodern artist assimilating influences from movements as disparate as Pop Art, Minimalism, Italian Renaissance and Dutch 17th Century still life. In 1999 he was one of 5 Australian finalists selected for Windsor and Newton’s Worldwide Millennium Art Prize and in 2000 was a finalist in Australian Art Magazine’s Still Life Challenge. Mark’s paintings hang in homes and businesses right across the world.

Peter Coad is a confident artist who uses vibrant colours for his vigorous interpretations of the vast Australian landscape. Since his first solo exhibition in 1978 the level of recognition and demand for his work has kept increasing year after year. With around 50 solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions to his credit, Peter Coad has attracted a substantial body of private and corporate collectors. In 2001 he was the first contemporary landscape artist to have two of his paintings reproduced for the Australian Commemorative Birth Certificates for the Year of Outback. In 2002 he was commissioned by internationally acclaimed film director, Rolf de Heer, to paint 14 large canvases which appear as static scenes in the iconic and award winning Australian movie The Tracker. His paintings have been provided as gifts to the Lord Mayor of Georgetown and also to the Cairns City Council’s sister city in Japan.

Peter Hales loves the beach. He loves the surf, the sand and the sky. And when he is not spending as much time as he can steal on the beach that he loves he is capturing its semi-realistic form and vibrant colour on a canvas.
His blue skies and golden sands are created through an unusual technique where he drapes the paint across the canvas with his thumb. He lets the paint fall and then works it backwards and forwards until he achieves the affect he desires.
Peter’s canvases have sold to clients right across the world in both the private and corporate sector.

Ray Crooke is one of Australia’s most well known artists. His years of living in the Torres Strait and Cairns provided experience crucial to his development as a painter. His first very successful solo exhibition was in 1959 at Australian Galleries in Melbourne. Now, highly sought after by all major galleries, his work hangs in the National Gallery of Australia, all state and many regional galleries. His murals grace Australia House in London and his painting “The Offering” 1971, is in the Vatican Museum Collection. Ray Crooke won the Archibald prize in 1969 and in 1993 was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to the visual arts. Reef Gallery proudly presents a display of Ray Crooke’s work in limited edition giclees.

Rebecca Pierce is an Australian artist based on the Northen Beaches of Sydney. Rebecca was one of the artists involved with the Sydney Olympic Bid creating art used on gifts received by the IOC Delegates.

As inspiration she unashamedly draws on the myriad of colours found in the Australian landscape, tis flora and fauna in both a contemporary and abstracted form.

Her drafting skills have been utilised by world-renowned corporations such as Waterford Wedgwood and The Royal Australian Mint Canberra.

The use of Rebecca's graphics are donated to charity organisations such as NAPCAN (National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neclect) and Good Beginnings-many of these graphics are extended to affiliate charities in UK and Europe.

Rebecca's works on canvas are found in private collections on most continents. She currently exhibits in the US, Singapore and Australia.

Susan Schmidt is a Queensland based artist whose paintings are a passionate explosion of impasto paint, rich glazes, exciting colour and light patterns rendered in a bold, refreshing and individual style. Her contemporary and visually stimulating images draw the viewer deeper into the spirit of each subject. Susan is an extremely popular artist whose work is always in demand. She is represented in private and public collections throughout Australia and overseas.

Tom McAulay was born in Innisfail, North Queensland, and as a youth studied under Arthur Evan Read and Andrew Sibley. As an adult, he spent lots of time painting around Cairns and the Torres Strait with his good mate, Ray Crooke.
Tom has travelled much of the vast Australian outback searching out subject material. He works in most mediums including pen and wash, oils, acrylics and gouache. Tom has won numerous art awards and his work is well represented in private and public collections in Australia and overseas. In 1990 he completed a series of paintings of Australia in sport commissioned by the then Prime Minister, Hon Bob Hawke.
Tom was the selected Queensland artist for the Sports in Art exhibition held in Adelaide in May 2000.

Tracy Dods is a young artist with a giant future. Since moving from Cairns to Sydney, Tracy Dods has been exhibiting her artwork on an almost continuous basis. Much of Tracy’s work depicts the lushness of the human form alongside the exciting colours of Australia’s beaches. Her style is fluid and distinctive and her following is growing daily.

Welcome

Reef Gallery was established in Cairns in tropical North Queensland
over 12 years ago and has long boasted an established worldwide
clientele.