My paintings are personal celebrations of being in the Australian landscape. Each painting represents, for me, a timeless moment in a perfect day made poignant by its utter impossibility and I strive to communicate this feeling.

The strength of my work lies in my depiction of places to which I have a strong emotional response, such as the lovely little coves and beaches of the Sydney Harbour foreshore; the remote, rocky coastline of Port Elliot in South Australia and the sensual, rolling hills of Dungog in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. I spend as much time as possible in each place before I paint; drawing, making colour notes and just absorbing the atmosphere so that I feel I have come to know it.

My love of early Italian Renaissance painting has been the inspiration for my use of stylisation to communicate my feelings and for the care with which I paint. In my work I delight in both depicting the light, colour and material qualities of a place, and also in including touches of playful imagination, invention and the surprise of the unexpected or illogical.

As I paint, I feel that I am recreating each part of each place through every brushstroke that I make.

Jacqueline Balassa, November 2005