ABOUT ROBYN & HER WORK
Lethbridge 20K Prize Finalist 2024 & 2025 · Weswal Interior Art Prize Finalist 2025 · Little Things Art Prize, Sydney 2025 · 1st Prize, Inverell Art Prize 2023 · Grand Champion, Kootingal Art Show 2023 · Denis Diderot Grant Recipient · Artist in Residence, Château Orquevaux, France
I'm Robyn Markey, an Australian oil painter working from my garden studio. I paint original floral and still life oil paintings — quiet, considered works designed to bring a sense of beauty and calm into the homes they live in.
My paintings are inspired by the changing rhythms of my garden and the relationships between flowers, objects, and light. Most of what I paint begins just outside my studio door — roses in bloom, fruit on the branch, the particular quality of morning light falling across a familiar surface. Each composition evolves slowly, layer by layer in oil, until it feels balanced and still.
I trained at the Adelaide Central School of Art and have continued to develop my practice through workshops and international residency programs. In 2025 I was awarded the Denis Diderot Grant and undertook an artist residency at Château Orquevaux in France — an experience that deepened my work significantly. One painting from that residency, Softly, The Dawn, now forms part of the Château d'Orquevaux permanent art collection at Galerie Diderot in France.
My work has been recognised in some of Australia's most respected art prizes. I was a finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Prize in both 2024 and 2025 — one of Australia's most competitive prizes for small-scale works — and a finalist in the Weswal Interior Art Prize and the Little Things Art Prize at David Stein Gallery in Sydney in 2025. I have also won first prizes at the Inverell Art Prize, the Armidale Art Prize, and the Kootingal Art Show, where I was awarded Grand Champion in 2023.
My original oil paintings, fine art prints, and handcrafted homewares are available to purchase online and are held in private collections across Australia. I also accept a small number of commissions each year for collectors who would like a painting made just for their home.
If you'd like to be the first to know when new works are available, I'd love for you to join my collector list.
