Hello, I'm Maureen Walsh Venville.

This is my story up to the present day. _________________________________________ Maureen spent her earliest years growing up in Liverpool England​,​ migrating to Australia with her family in 1967. As a child she can remember spending most of her time drawing and making collages​,​ she has always loved making art. Maureen has always worked with her hands from her first position in the printing industry​,​ attending art school with a special interest in painting​,​ sculpture and art history​,​ then later in the allied health field as a Remedial Massage Therapist and Bowen Therapist. Maureen is a cancer survivor of ten years. After many surgeries​,​ chemotherapy and radiation therapy​,​ she is very happy to be able to say that she is now cancer free. She commented​,​ that even though cancer is such a devastating disease to have​,​ it actually taught her many things she probably wouldn't have learned otherwise. It gave her a second life and made her understand the fragility and shortness of our time here. She has since chosen to do what makes her happy with the rest of her time. She loves life​,​ her family and loves her painting. She now spends her time in her small studio in the garden of her home in the bayside town of Frankston in Victoria. Living her dream. For the past ten years she has also been studying Rajah Yoga Meditation (open eye meditation) and positive thinking with the Brahma Kumaris. With the combination of meditation​,​ positive thinking and art she has been able to find her way in this new life​,​ she now paints from her soul​,​ intuitively. Maureen has exhibited her work widely around Victoria in shared exhibitions and has had two successful solo exhibitions. The first in Frankston Arts Center at Cube 37"The Souls Garden"​,​ and the second in Sol Gallery "A Soulful of Colour"​,​ in the city of Melbourne Painting intuitively​,​ she has developed her own style. She has been on a mission to find her inner child and deliberately silence that part of her inner critic that prevents her from painting from her soul. She is obsessed with colour and composition. She starts each painting with no fixed idea of what will evolve to live on the canvas. Each mark suggests the application of the next line​,​ the next colour​,​ until the painting lets her know that there is 'no more to do here​,​ time to move on.' Maureen likes to involve the viewer in her works​,​ she likes them to be able to "read" her paintings​,​ attracting them with the colours and compositions and the wonderful​,​ exaggerated shapes that often combine to make an entirely new figurative component. Maureen really enjoys her work​,​ and the act of creation is just as important to her as the finished painting. It's the journey as well as the destination that makes a complete work. Making something that didn't exist before she started putting marks on a canvas​,​ is everything to her​,​ a creation!! Her paintings reflect her universe​,​ they are colourful​,​ quirky and lyrical​,​ she states that her imagination is her best friend and an unlimited source of inspiration. She is totally amazed by the contents of the subconscious mind and enjoys the freedom of working in this way.