Anne-France Fulgence revels in dramatic landscape compositions. The Australia she paints lies in a mythical half-light between the sea and the land. These are eerie dream places – scenes merge and morph into Fulgence’s observations, recollections, imaginings, forebodings, and longings.

Her latest work explores the mystery and majesty of the south coast of NSW. Sheer cliffs and teeming tidal pools meet ocean and an infinite sky. These are scenes suffused with serenity – fleeting moments of stillness.

A-F reveres her precious coast, and it shows in the etheric lines produced by her accomplished hand – never seeking to contain a scene’s mythic grandeur but opening our eyes to its primordial beauty through the free-flowing mastery of her media.

Unashamed romance drenches each scene. On paper and canvas, brushstrokes swirl and spiral in exquisite layers – viewed up close it’s like peering into one of those delicate intertidal rockpools. In this way, her paintings become a bridge between the real and the fantastical.

A-F was born in Morocco, studied in France, and migrated to Australia in 1989. She attributes her sense of drama and place to her French ancestry and what she admits is a “wild romanticism”. “The Australia I paint is vivid, compelling, ever shifting. My paintings can be like a poetic tale, dark, moody, evocative, and atmospheric,” A-F (as she prefers to be called) explains.

“I find solace in the solitude within my studio, where I battle with paint and celebrate any progress, I make in capturing an instant of beauty.”