Nadine freelances in Brisbane and interstate for a range of advertising agencies, designers and corporate clients. Here we’ve featured a mixture of her personal work as well, where Nadine’s personality really shines through. With a background in fine arts, Nadine likes to get involved in the conceptual process, and admits that she’s known for her humorous, adventurous and direct approach.

The Mad Hatter Tea Party, allowed her to be more adventurous creatively and is definitely one of her favourites.

View more of Nadine’s large variety of work on her website, see the latest updates on her Facebook page, or follow on Twitter.

How have you got to where you are today?

I grew up in Durban, South Africa by the beach with weather much like Brisbane. My mother was a wonderful oil painter, her portraits always left a deep impression, I started painting when I was very young and was sent to art classes before I could do my times table.

I had saved all my pocket money and bought my first camera when I was 8 and started taking reference photos for my paintings.

Over the years, somehow the photos became more important to me than the painting of them and by the time I was 17, I had largely swapped my paintbrush for the camera as my tool of choice.

My goal was one day to be able to bring the viewer into my work, like I had been drawn into my mother’s portraits.

In a few words, describe yourself…

I would say the best way to describe myself is as an “Urban Hippy”. I love nature, animals and have studied permaculture design. I believe in the simplicity of sustainable living and have actively built an organic oasis, full of beautiful light, colour and texture that takes me away from the concrete city backdrop.

I am fascinated by nutrition and the history of herbs as medicine. In my free time I am still taking photos of either food or nature. I love music and playing the drums and am currently learning to play the piano. Food, friends and laughter are important to me.

What are you spending your time on at the moment?

I am working with my food stylist, Jaime, on a twist on the old master painters, a series of images that adopt the chiaroscuro format but with a subject matter to challenge the viewer… it’s a surprise so I will say no more just now.

I am also slowly working on a tea book, I am hoping to bring beautiful images together with a rich deep history of tea for social, medicinal, cultural and ritual use spanning hundreds of years, its a bit more challenging that I had imagined.

Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?

Absolutely! Firstly everything has got to be clean and organised, housework, chores or bookwork done—like a blank canvas.

I set the perfect music and then I let my imagination run away with itself. The challenge is to deconstruct the ideas into a form that can be recreated physically and/or with some digital magic.

I also find that I am most creative, funnily enough when I am overly tired or very still and quiet.

What or who inspires you?

Anyone who creates anything – inspires me. I am constantly inspired by people, places, stories and dreams. The journeys they lead me on give me a desire to create.

What are you most proud of?

I have been fortunate enough to work on some amazing jobs and have been pretty spoilt with great clients, but my favourite recent creation was my version of the Mad Hatters Tea Party, my imagination took me to a magical place and with the help of Jamie, we brought my daydream to life.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Either an artist, or an animal/game-ranger and I guess since part of a game-rangers job is to ‘shoot’ animals (with tranquilizers of course) I guess I am halfway there!