Marilyn Peck, Strawberry Fields. Watercolour on paper, 10 x 8cm. Courtesy: the artist and Anthea Polson Art.

With an international reputation as a significant miniaturist, Marilyn Peck has been winning awards and exhibiting, both overseas and in Australia, since 1970. In honour of this venerable artist’s 90th birthday, Anthea Polson Art presents a survey of her work. The exhibition also features Peck’s recent paintings and launches her latest poetry collection which shares the title Windfalls.

Like all found objects, ‘windfalls’ can be treasure or trash depending on who’s doing the fossicking. Peck has been sorting through found images in her paintings and poetry for decades, turning ‘happy accidents’ into the beauties and beasts that cavort in her imagination. “I discovered that painting in both negative and positive spaces worked well for miniaturisation,” Peck imparts. “Depending on which way I look at an image as it emerges on the picture plane, various stories unfold in my mind. Subsequently, my brush brings these imaginings to life.”