'I really needed an artistic outlet': A look inside the home of Canberra artist Penelope Boyd

What do you see when you think of domestic bliss? Someone rolling up their sleeves to bake the perfect apple pie, a vase of fresh-cut flowers on the mantle? I see Penelope Boyd sitting in her home studio intermixing art with the everyday occurrences of life; like paints on a palette.

Another one for the Canberra-born and bred docket, Boyd is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and creates in her Latham home with husband and children in tow. Instead of chaos, it provides a private sanctuary.

“I’m really lucky to work from a home studio. It’s a luxury to be able to paint at any time of day,” Boyd says.

“On a typical day I’m up early, then it’s coffee, a walk with the dogs and straight into the studio. Whatever I’m working on, it’s all happening in that one room.”

Mixed media lines each wall, from photographs of past and present portraits to quick study sketches and Baroque-style seascapes painted by the likes of Peter Paul Rubens; a favourite and inspiration of Boyd’s.

Tabletops are dressed with ceramics and sculptures – another discipline familiar to Boyd’s creative hands. Although she still considers herself a novice, she jokes, “Thankfully others like what I create, otherwise my home would be crammed with pottery.”

As the pottery scurries away, her paintings can be seen creeping off the easel, out of the studio and hanging throughout her home.

“I tend to hang my artwork around the place until I decide whether they make the cut,” Boyd says.

“I generally need to ‘sit’ with a painting for a while, to see it from different angles and distances.”

Boyd’s at-home gallery is peppered with wood furnishings, giving it a refined richness that’s offset by light and airy interiors.

Much like her hyper-realistic paintings, there’s both light and shade being entertained at once. Begging the age-old question, does art imitate life or is it the other way around?

“After my son was born, I really needed an artistic outlet. There were many days painting at the dining table with a baby crawling at my feet.” Boyd says

And it was not long before the baby stirring below became the subject of the canvas.

“People are endlessly fascinating, particularly children,” Boyd says.

“Painting a portrait and seeing not only the child, but some intangible sense of who they are and who they’ll become – that is my passion.”

Depictions of children often project a theme of innocence, but there’s something dark and moody about Boyd’s figurative paintings.

The subjects are seemingly caught off-guard; in a state of movement. The voyeuristic nature of the pieces creates a sense of unease but simultaneously heightens curiosity about the circumstances of the fleeting moment.

“It’s funny as I’m quite an optimistic, happy sort of person, but my paintings are always dark and somewhat sinister,” Boyd says.

Her daughter Helena is also a frequent muse and as her practice adapts to family and vice versa, the space in which Boyd creates is in a constant state of transformation.

Her warm and welcoming home is overcome with land and seascapes found in secondhand stores and the interiors change on the daily with furniture, plants and paintings moving around to suit her current mood.

“I’m a bit of a bowerbird when it comes to certain objects,” Boyd says.

“But I try to keep my collections under control. The only exception is the studio, which will be messy one minute after I clean it.”

Aside from relative tidiness, Boyd’s home and studio are one in the same. It’s a personal and professional utopia. I only wonder if it’s taking new members.