Shay Pappas

I began painting in oils in 2022 after many years of exploring other creative disciplines.

My current visual arts practice centres around creating highly textured, layered works that invite the viewer to look closer and feel a connection to the natural world.

I often use modelling paste and unconventional tools such as plasterers’ scrapers, drywall tape, and palette knives to build surface depth, encouraging a tactile and expressive quality.

Stylistically, my work is grounded in modern impressionism, influenced by artists like Andre Kohn and Izumi Kogahara, as well as contemporary Australian painters including David Hinchliffe & John Rice. I’m drawn to the way light, movement, and atmosphere can be conveyed through loose mark-making and abstracted forms, allowing emotion and energy to guide the process.

My artistic concerns centre around memory, mood, and our connection to place. I’m especially inspired by the Australian landscape—its vastness, its solitude, and its quietly shifting beauty. I strive to capture not just how a scene looks, but how it feels to stand within it: the textures underfoot, the breeze through trees, the shifting colours of sky and earth. My interest lies in evoking a sense of belonging, stillness, and wonder.

As my practice evolves, I continue to explore new ways to express depth and emotion through surface and materiality—seeking always to strike a balance between control and freedom, representation and abstraction.

While I paint, I’m chasing the feeling of open skies and deep breaths—so if you stepped into one of my paintings, I hope you'd feel free, grounded, and connected to the quiet magic of nature.