Biography
Geraldine lives and creates from her home studio at Collaroy on Sydney's northern beaches, Australia.
For the first eight years of her life, Geraldine lived in London, England and settled in Australia in 1968. As a child of parents who worked in the performing arts, this environment led to spending many weeks and months away from home in boarding school. The two activities that made her feel more at home and made her heart sing were drawing and riding her bike.
Time spent alone riding her bike inspired her love of nature and deep appreciation for all living things. With wonder, she would study objects that caught her eye, such as the unique patterns and texture of a tree trunk, the way the light shone through the leaves, or the soft, velvety feel of a flower petal. These experiences helped enhance and develop her observational skills and the patience required to create detailed works of art.
During her travels to the deep jungles of Borneo, the eyes of the orangutans and the exquisite beauty of native Indonesian wildlife captivated her. That life-changing experience in 2005 was the catalyst for her calling to raise funds and awareness for endangered wildlife. Drawing soulful wildlife portraits was the way forward to communicate her mission and passion for wildlife conservation. Now that the world's wildlife and habitats are disappearing before our very eyes, she aims to inspire as many people as possible.
Geraldine creates her wildlife portraits in either pastel and coloured pencils or scratchboard. These mediums enable her to capture the real-life textures and emotional expressions that bring each animal to life. By paying close attention to the eyes, her passion is to communicate that animals are connected to us, with awareness, and are innocent, sentient beings just as we are.
Support for Conservation:
Geraldine supports several animal welfare and environmental organizations through donations of her art. Closest to her heart is Friends of the National Parks Foundation (http://www.fnpf.org) in Borneo, Indonesia, which focus on the conservation of orangutans and other Indonesian wildlife. That life-changing trip back in 2005 was the catalyst for her mission to raise funds and awareness for endangered wildlife.
Profoundly stirred by this trip, Geraldine founded the Riding for Rangas annual charity bike ride in 2009 (biennially since 2013) to raise funds and awareness for FNPF. Riders are sponsored to complete the challenging 300km distance in two days.
In 2008, Geraldine donated her drawing Sole Koala to help raise funds for making the feature-length documentary Milking The Rhino. The purpose of the documentary was to raise awareness of African wildlife conservation. The film won many awards in several film festivals, including best documentary, best nature documentary and best cinematography.
In 2017 and 2018, Geradlne was invited to donate original artworks for silent auction in Sketch for Survival in conjunction with Explorers Against Extinction - a global art initiative that highlights the plight of elephants and other iconic species; to raise awareness about threats to habitats and to raise funds through frontline projects.
In 2018, AFC members were invited to create one or more 8 x 8-inch artworks on any of the 678 endangered bird species for the Silent Skies super mural project. Geraldine chose the Cebu Boobook owl from the Philippines as her subject.
The spring of 2019 and the summer of 2020 was the most catastrophic in Australia's history for bushfires and the consequent loss of a staggering 480 million animals and 18.6 million hectares of habitat. Unable to sit still, Geraldine took it upon herself to set up an online Facebook silent auction of one of her koala drawings to raise funds for the Port Macquarie Koala hospital in NSW. Through the connection of social media, Geraldine's page was discovered. She was invited to participate in "100 Artworks for a Koala - Konservation Project" through non-profit organization Living With Koalas. 100 Australian based artists will provide original artwork relating to koalas. It is an auction led event on an International scale where the funds generated will be used for awareness programs and school visits as well as funding LWK koala food tree nurturing and planting program. Originally planned to commence in July 2020, the event will be re-scheduled after Covid restrictions have eased.
Geraldine has accepted invitations to donate her works to other conservation groups and campaigns such as Humane Society International, Sea Shepherd, Silvery Gibbon Art Auction and Borneo Orangutan Society.
Special Achievements:
2022/21/19/17/16/14/13/12 Art of Conservation- An International Exhibit of Nature in Art virtual exhibit in conjunction with AFC annual festival in Vancouver, Canada
2020 ENDANGERED Art4Apes - Virtual Artist in Residence Award
2016 Finalist - The Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize
AFC selects an artist each month for artistic excellence and extraordinary dedication to conservation. In 2010 Geraldine was awarded the AFC Conservation Artist Award for May.