Stephanie’s love of art and wildlife began early.
She grew up between Geelong and Jan Juc on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, spending holidays surfing, collecting shells and exploring rock pools. Even when her family moved back to the rolling hills of south-west England, the Australian coast continued to appear in her art.
Like many creatives, she grew up believing painting wasn’t a real career path. That belief led her to study law, international relations and later event management.
But painting always called her back.
She sketched while backpacking, filled visual diaries as she travelled, and even took commissions from classmates to decorate dorm walls. One summer in Portugal, while sketching the beaches of the Algarve, she met David.
After returning to Australia together and eventually moving to the tropics, a single trip to the Great Barrier Reef reignited something in her.
The wonder of that place was impossible to ignore. Drifting beneath the surface among corals and schools of fish, then surfacing to swaying palms and salt-thick air, Stephanie felt a pull she could not resist.
That energy poured onto canvas after canvas, and locals quickly took notice. Before long, she was selling out market stalls and creating commissions for clients near and far.
A move to Sydney to support family became the catalyst for painting full time. When Sydney Children’s Hospital invited her to exhibit alongside some of Australia’s leading contemporary painters, all three of her works sold before opening night.
For Stephanie, it was proof that others felt the same connection to the sea that she did — and that art could become more than something she returned to quietly in the margins.
It could become a life.
After years of exhibitions, fairs and commissions, the pace became relentless. In need of a break, Stephanie and David booked a holiday back to Port Douglas. The moment the plane doors opened and the humidity wrapped around them, they knew they had to return to the tropics.
Arriving on the eve of the first pandemic lockdown, they spent the months that followed exploring quiet beaches, painting late into the night and setting up at weekend markets. Those slower days planted the seed for what would eventually become SEA Gallery.
Today, Stephanie paints from her studio in Port Douglas, creating original artwork and fine art prints inspired by the reef, rainforest and wildlife that surround her young family’s everyday life.
Together with David, she now shares this work through SEA Gallery, a space dedicated to bringing the feeling of the reef, rainforest and coast into homes around the world.
