I was born in Perth in 1984 to an artist father and my mum Angela, an Anglo-Indian model whose life once crossed paths with rock royalty and the 1960s music scene. Her world was vibrant, glamorous and wild, but also shadowed by addiction and violence. Growing up, I saw both the beauty and the damage that came with that life. Wikipedia+1

My childhood held lemons and methadone clinics, beachside pubs and police lights, laughter and chaos. Those early memories – the good and the heartbreaking – are stitched into everything I make. My art is my way of remembering, even the people that have left the their bodily vessels, especially my mum. It’s how I honour the love that was there underneath all the brokenness.

Today I live and work in Yeppoon, on the Central Queensland coast, creating emotive artworks, prints and homewares that carry that history in a gentler form. I’m drawn to symbols of transformation , dragonflies, sunflowers, storms, shells, bleeding hearts, because they mirror my own journey through grief into something softer and more whole. Jet James Artist+1

For me, art is memory made visible. It’s the felt sense of a moment, the ache, the tenderness, the quiet hope , translated into colour, texture and line. Every piece is a small celebration of life: of the boy who made it through, of the woman who gave him his first light, and of the people who see their own story reflected back in the work.

If my art does anything, I hope it reminds you that even in the messiest, most painful chapters, there is still beauty being written underneath.