Couleur Parfumerie is indeed the perfect title for Michelle Kennedy’s first solo exhibition which opened last week at Toowoomba’s Feather and Lawry Gallery.

The works are unapologetically vibrant and joyous, unbottling a fearless feminine energy.

Michelle’s love of art was a constant through her childhood growing up in Allora – her father was a keen hobby photographer – and continued after she married ‘a Winton boy’ and lived in very remote Queensland for some time.

“When I first got married there was probably five artists of varying ages all within about a three hour drive, which is super close in that country, and we would have art days together on the different stations,” she said.

Michelle and Quentin eventually moved back to the Darling Downs where they had both attended Downlands College, and embarked on new careers and, more importantly, an IVF program that would ultimately gift them with their beloved daughter Montana, now 26.

Back in Allora, Michelle says although art was something she enjoyed she “didn’t think too much about it because I was a bush kid and we were too busy feeding cattle or riding a bike…

“But in primary school there was a competition, I was in Grade 6, and I won it and the prize was a book based on The Louvre.

“I opened up this book and thought wow, there’s a whole world beyond Allora… and so I’ve painted ever since.”

Michelle was diagnosed with Lupus in 2009 and was advised to give up her career in mental health.

She loved working with rehab patients but in the less demanding pace she was able to pick up her brushes again with time on her side.

Friends would call in and ask if her paintings were for sale and one day Montana suggested to she start selling the work online.

And it really is a case of the rest is history.

The exhibition at Feather and Lawry is particularly special, as her first public exhibition.

The work, all completed in the past two years, was largely inspired by the colours of her travels in Queensland and the Northern Territory from lagoons and flowers and lush tropical backdrops to the more muted tones of the outback.

“Every time I paint, because I have this beautiful daughter that was so hard fought to get, and because I see there’s still a ways to go for women, I keep thinking you can put in all the curves and shapes, and the strength of the water which is nurturing… so much of the characteristics of being female comes out in the work I do.”

This article appeared in On Our Selection News, 13 July 2023.