Simply Inspired... by my dad

After posting about the fabulous style of my Mum recently, it's only fitting that I share how inspiring my Dad is too. He is an artist who has been painting and drawing all his life, but it wasn't until about seven years ago that he walked out of a boardroom meeting and decided to follow art full time. I find that in itself pretty inspirational, but I also love his work and find we share a common style of muse.

Over the weekend we hosted an exhibition of some of his work at our house. He works with a variety of media including charcoals, oils and printmaking. One of his most established (and popular) areas of work is his charcoal drawings of iconic women. The exhibition we held focused on his latest pieces on this ongoing series.

His name is Noel Miller and you can view his latest work on his new website/ blog: www.noelmiller.com, but here's a few images of some of my latest favourites:

Mary

Solitude

Waiting

Three Friends

Silently

The last piece above, Silently is one of two that are currently hanging in the Kedumba Drawing Award, an invitation-only exhibition specifically for drawing. It's quite an exclusive and prestigious award to be invited to enter, which was only reinforced for me when I saw that some of the other artists included Archibald Prize winners Del Kathryn Barton and Adam Cullen, as well as multiple other Dobell and Wynn winners and finalists.

As we were getting ready for the exhibition, it got me thinking that the women in his drawings are exactly the kind of women I would like to imagine wearing my creations. Kind of like a reverse or circular muse...

This gave me a great idea for displaying my Simply Phoebe necklaces. Luckily, Dad loved the idea too, and so we are in the process of turning a few of our favourite charcoal ladies into mini-mannequins. They are still a work in progress, and will be making their official modelling debut at Finders Keepers in Brisbane this weekend, but we gave them a test run at the exhibition and they were a hit. Here's a sneak peak at how they are looking wearing a few different pieces from the Simply Camille range:

This is a new colourway I've added for Finders Keepers - I've called it Purple Deco.

Size: graduated - medium

Limited edition Red & Black Florence Broadhurst print

Size: medium

New red & white stripe

Size: Large

This last mannequin is based on a drawing of the lovely Lizzie, who was an exchange student with my family when I was young and has become more like a surrogate real sister - another inspirational person to cover more another time!

If you like what you see, mosey on over to www.noelmiller.com. All works are for sale, some in prints as well as originals. We are also working on a range of gift cards which I will be selling at The Rocks Designer Markets in Sydney very soon.

Simply yours,

Phoebe