Bridie O'Brien

Bridie O’Brien is an Australian landscape artist whose work blends abstract realism with contemporary impressionism. Bridie O’Brien is a visual artist and lifelong musician, raised on a working farm in country NSW, Australia. After graduating from the Australian Institute of Music in 1998, she pursued a music career that carried her across continents. She earned a Diploma in Entertainment Design (Illustration) in 2005 and was accepted into the National Art School the following year, though her path ultimately led elsewhere. For the next fifteen years she lived a life shaped by sound and travel, from busking on the streets of Scotland to living on a remote Caribbean island. In 2019 she toured nationally with Icehouse, The Church, Mental As Anything, and The Sunnyboys while playing lead guitar for Do Ri Mi. Her thirties brought a turning point during her work as an audio engineer at the Art Gallery of NSW, where overseeing lectures immersed her in the world of art once more. Walking those halls reignited a calling she could no longer ignore.

Since 2020 she has devoted herself to painting the natural world in oil. Working with a palette knife and bold colour, she brings landscapes to life through a language of abstract realism and contemporary impressionism. Her practice is grounded in travel and time outdoors, bushwalking, snow camping, and observing the rhythms of light and land. Her work has been recognised as a finalist in major national prizes including the Paddington Art Prize, the Lethbridge Landscape Prize, and the National Capital Art Prize. She has exhibited nationally and internationally with shows in Madrid, Austria, and Milan, and her paintings have appeared in magazines and on album covers. Her creative development has been enriched by self-directed study at some of the world’s great institutions and cultural centres, including the Louvre in France (2019), New York’s gallery circuit (2022), Renaissance collections in Italy (2023), Portugal’s museums (2025), and extensive research travel across continental China and parts of Tibet (2025). Each experience has deepened her commitment to painting as a transformative force.

Every painting she creates is a kind of poem, a dialogue with place, memory, and light. Her aim is to reveal the deep kinship between art and the natural world and the way both invite connection, empathy, and reflection. After twenty-seven years in Sydney, she has recently settled in Canberra where, surrounded by mountains and bushland, she feels at home and at peace.

Finalist 2021 National Capital Art Prize 2022 Lethbridge Small-Scale Prize 2022 Paddington Art Prize 2023 Lethbridge Landscape Prize Salon des Refusés 2024 Lethbridge Landscape Prize Salon des Refusés

Exhibitions 2021 Innsbruck Art Fair, Austria 2021 The Other Art Fair, Sydney (Dec) 2022 Milano Art Fair, Italy 2022 Van Gogh Art Gallery, Madrid 2022 The Other Art Fair, Sydney (July and Dec) 2022 Solo Exhibition Energy of Risk, Corner Gallery Stanmore 2022 Group Exhibition Interlude, Sheer Gallery 2022 Group Exhibition, Art Goupie, Darlinghurst Road Gallery 2023 The Other Art Fair, Sydney 2024 The Other Art Fair, Sydney and Melbourne 2024 The Affordable Art Fair, Sydney and Melbourne 2024 Solo Exhibition Miles To Go Before I Sleep, Aarwun Gallery Canberra 2025 Solo Exhibition Full Moon Sway, Gallery Alchemy Milton 2025 Affordable Art Fair, Melbourne and Sydney 2026 First Sentier, Tower 3, Barangaroo - solo exhibition