About Penelope

Penelope Boyd (b. 1982) is a realist painter from Canberra, Australia.

Through thoughtful composition, highly detailed brush strokes and careful use of light and shadow, Penelope's portraits and figurative paintings are both captivating and one of a kind.

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Adopting the traditional painting techniques of the Old Masters and borrowing from the vast catalogue of pre-industrial Western art, her figurative work is rich with an eerie sense of danger and uncertainty.

In her latest series, masked figures occupy lush, foreboding landscapes in an imagined, dreamlike world. These girls are alone, comfortable with their seclusion and detached from any particular place or time, their identity and intentions unknown. Unlike the stilted portraits of high-born young ladies of art history, these girls inhabit a world of their own making, full of possibility and danger. They offer an escape, a fragmented narrative that invites the viewer to journey with them.

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Penelope was awarded the Cliftons Art Prize in 2014, and has been a finalist in various prizes including the Shirley Hannan Portrait Prize (2014), and the Yen Female Art Award (2016, 2014). 

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