For artist and farmer Wendy McDonald, her creative life would struggle to exist away from the property, near the Murray River in Southwest NSW, which she shares with her husband and their two children.

The mixed farm on Thule Lagoon feeds inspiration for Wendy’s painting and printmaking by providing a true sense of how the landscape works.

She admits she couldn’t be an artist without being a farmer and vice versa – that one could not function without the other.

Her work draws from the ecology of the local environment, the ebb and flow of the creeks and rivers and the dramatic changes of the seasons.

She is honoured to tell the story of the ephemeral floodplain and the joys of belonging to a small community, through her art.

Wendy’s work has been shown in galleries across Regional NSW and Victoria, and in Sydney and Melbourne, with pieces in private and public collections around the world. Her works have featured in both Home Beautiful and Australian Country Style Magazine. She was honoured to be included in the 2018 Thames & Hudson publication “A Painted Landscape” by Amber Creswell Bell.

Wendy has been a finalist in numerous awards including The NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize (2016, 2017 & 2018), the Paddington Art Prize, The Calleen Art Prize and The Swan Hill Print & Drawing Acquisitive Prize.