"Hello, I'm fine artist and arts business owner Yvonne Maclean.​ In my studio work of drawing, painting, printmaking and digital art design, I explore the complex beauty of people and their stories, curious about the effect our favourite objects, places, relationship and memories have on our identity.’ Long held interests in fine arts and fashion design delivered me to my first creative cross roads when I was accepted into both studies at two of Melbourne’s leading Universities. I couldn’t imagine both applications being accepted but they were and after much agonising deliberation, painting won out, with fashion and design remaining a long love affair in my arts practice and continues today. Forever pushing the marks I make in all of my Studio pursuits i developed as a fine artist strengthening also a digital arts practice that has blossomed into surface pattern design, illustration and many creative arts contracts. I realised early on I loved surfaces and their effect equal to the art I make. It's deeply satisfying in much the same way that I love Fresco and colour dying ... the same reasons with a modern, contemporary world take. Early works I made in my under grad, Bachelor of Fine Arts, blended fashion, night scenes, furniture and a deep love of the figure, birthing an ongoing passion for life drawing practice and portraiture. In my late teens I produced a satisfying collection of painted, printed and sculpted works born from my use of family slides, Super-8 films and childhood photographs. This work, created as a 17 year old arts' student, has stood the test of time and those early childhood portraits have remained with me as a continuing source of inspiration in my Studio practice. From this angle of time, I also see their influence in the work I took on beside my arts practice, of working with people in human services, working with children of all ages and their families. Its seems all the work I’ve done and do, seems to keep harnessing the love I have of people, in particularly about the sacredness of childhood and wonderment of children. I’ve worked teaching art, and as a Community & Youth Development Officer, and (with all ages of people) as a clinical arts psychotherapist with people enduring bereavement or whom are themselves palliative. I look across the truly broad variety of ways I’ve worked and still work, and see the strengths of my fine arts practice reflected in it all. My fine arts work has always been traceable to the love I have of people, ever-visible in the figure drawing, portraiture and design and illustration work I produce and need to make. I’ve nurtured this keen interest in people, their stories, their families and their health, and continue my inquiries into maternal/ paternal, nurturing effects, mothering, heritage, relationship, bond, belonging, loss, identity and legacy. I’m an artisan that continues to serve the aesthetic / expressive needs I have along side my social justice / health care interest. As long as I can feature and work with my inquiries and love of people, nature and our meaning making, I’ll remain actively making thus content. Yvonne Maclean