Artist Nerida Woolley draws inspiration for her landscapes from the timber sheds and houses that punctuate the rolling green hills of the NSW Northern Rivers District.
As a child growing up in Lismore, Nerida Woolley loved nothing better than spending time on her grandparents’ dairy farm. From an early age, she was captivated by the rolling green hills of the NSW Northern Rivers and the rustic timber sheds and weatherboard buildings that dotted the fertile landscape. Nerida also loved to paint and often dabbled in interpretations of the local landscape.
“I loved art at school, but it clashed with my economics class,” she recalls. “There were no artists in our family, so art wasn’t seen as a viable career path.” Instead, Nerida headed off to Gatton Agricultural College, now part of The University of Queensland, and studied agribusiness before working for cotton and grain companies, travelling from Goondiwindi and Dalby to Dubbo and eventually Sydney. She studied communications through Charles Sturt University and moved into communications roles in rural banking. “I loved my jobs, but the yearning to paint was never far from the surface,” she says. “Whenever I could, I did weekend workshops and kept practising.”
In 2001, Nerida took a belated “gap” year and headed to the UK and Europe for an extended working holiday. She returned to Lismore to catch up with family, gained a position working on the local newspaper, the Northern Star, and a year turned into seven. “Then my brother set me up on a date with Richard and the rest is history,” she says. “We’d all gone to the same school, but they were a few years ahead of me, so I didn’t know him well.”
Richard and Nerida raised Richard’s three children — Ayla, Will and Meg — as well as the three younger sons they have together — Fergus, 15, Jock 13 and Hugh, 12 — on their family’s macadamia farm near Alstonville. Richard’s family originally grew sugar cane, but were early to convert to farming macadamias. These days, the Woolleys have about 5000 trees planted to the popular nut on their 80-acre (32-hectare) farm, where they also run beef cattle. “Life was pretty hectic in the early years, and it wasn’t until Hugh went to primary school that I found the time to go to TAFE to study visual arts,” Nerida says. “I was finally in my element and as part of my major in painting, I had to create an Instagram account.”
Commissions and opportunities to exhibit followed and, these days, Nerida works full-time from a studio beside her house on the farm. “I work mainly in oils, though sometimes over an acrylic base,” she says. “If I’m commissioned to do a local landscape, I visit the site, though I’m also happy to work remotely using photographs from the clients.” Nerida also exhibits in galleries up and down the east coast from Satch & Co in Holbrook, NSW, to Roma and Toowoomba in Queensland. Now that the younger boys are at boarding school at Southport, and Hugh is about to join them this year, she has even more time to devote to her endeavours. “They have lots of sporting events, mainly rowing and rugby, so we travel to watch them most weekends and I’m always taking phone snaps of landscapes for future paintings,” Nerida says. “Everyone is used to me constantly asking them to stop so I can grab a shot of things that jump up in front of us.”
In May 2024, Nerida won the landscape division of the Aspect Art Show in the southern Queensland farming centre of Goondiwindi. “I was just blown away by the accolade,” she says. “Also, by the incredible support for the arts in Goondiwindi. It’s remarkable how the entire town supports creative endeavours.” She was also a finalist in the 2021 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize, a semi-finalist in the BAM (Byron Arts Magazine) Art Prize in 2020 and was selected by Amber CreswellBell to participate in the 2023 ACB Selects online exhibition as part of the National Emerging Art Prize. More recently, Nerida has produced a range of tea towels and greeting cards bearing her artworks. “A lot of people want to support me but can’t extend to the cost of an original oil painting, so this is a way of extending my base,” she says. “I’m happy to be in the studio all day long. I’m extremely grateful to have found myself in a place where I can paint to my heart’s content and earn from it.”
