PLAY. Nature, Diversity and Friendship in the schoolyard

 Meet the artist -  Paula Hart

Paula is a Western Australian visual artist of recognised excellence and boundless creative energy, with a solid reputation within the WA arts community for well delivered commission work. Paula works across a broad range of disciplines that include laser-cut metal, her internationally award winning LaceFence design, painted murals, festival arts, performance, recycled materials and digital photomontage. Paula has diverse clients from private developers, public institutions to remote first nations communities.   

 About the Art

With a long history of working with children’s artwork, Paula has an innate ability to understand and articulate in her work the secret life of children. Full of colour, detail and whimsy, her work is grounded heavily in creative process as she delves inside a child’s mind to extrapolate their thoughts and dreams and brings them to life.

For this mural commission Paula conducted highly structured drawing workshops at Liwara Catholic School to determine the themes and create the imagery. Her task then to translate these illustrations, avoiding editing, censoring or neatening up, to authentically capture the unselfconscious charm of children’s drawing, while creating a visual work that has a strong aesthetic sensibility with sophistication and significance.

Working with children’s designs is more than a ticked box for community engagement. The attention to the details of our environment leads to love of place, and an intricately detailed artwork, created by the school community adds an emotional connection to where we live and learn.

This artwork is installed on retaining walls at the Liwara Catholic Primary School along the Principal Share Path and facing the Mitchell Freeway corridor. Photo Credit:  Sohan Hayes