From the moment she swept a big, fat crayon across butcher’s paper in kindergarten, Shelley Harkness knew she had found her passion. That simple gesture opened a doorway into a lifelong wonderland of joy, colour, and creative expression.
After a successful career as a visual art teacher, Shelley made the move to the Sunshine Coast, where the beauty of the coastal environment became her muse. Working daily from her home studio in Moffa Beach, she began to fully embrace painting and drawing. “Suddenly doors opened with new possibilities. I could create and paint exactly what I love,” she says. “I found the space to define exactly what my art and practice might look like.”
Shelley paints in a colourful, expressive style using acrylics, and her current work explores local beach vistas, coastal botanicals, and vintage caravans. Nostalgia and memory are central themes, not just in her paintings but in her broader creative life—op-shopping, vintage wares, vintage journal making, and clothing from decades past all feed into her artistic world.
Her beloved series on fibro beach shacks captures this beautifully. “Beach shacks represent some of the best times of my childhood holidays in the 1970s,” she shares. “We had a beach house on the far south coast of NSW—a place to roam free, to fish, swim and live in a simpler time.”
Shelley welcomes commissions and loves connecting with others through her work.
Shelley opens her studio to the public from Wednesday 21st May to Sunday 25th May (10am-4pm) as part of the Open Studios Sunshine Coast exhibition.
