Bridie Amelia Schmidt’s practice explores the emotional connection between landscape, memory and belonging. Working primarily with acrylic paint, she creates semi-abstract and small scale figurative landscapes inspired by coastlines, mountains, tropical vegetation and the subtle shifts in light, weather and colour observed while walking. Some places draw on direct experience and references, while others emerge through imagination and recollection.

Her paintings develop intuitively through loose, gestural brushwork, and textured surfaces. Translucent layers often contrast with opaque brushstrokes to create a vibrating impression of light, drawing on Impressionist colour theory. Collaged organic forms and gelli-printed papers sometimes provide a starting point, allowing each image to evolve through adding, obscuring and rediscovering. Colour is central to her work, with earthy greens and ochres sitting alongside sun-washed pinks, lilacs and blues to evoke atmosphere rather than describe a place literally.

Across her practice, Bridie is interested in the tension between stillness and movement, and between nature’s calm beauty and its raw, unpredictable force. Horizons, ridges, water and trees become containers for mood and memory. Bridie practices art in Bundjalung country, in northern NSW Australia, and recently started studying at Byron School of Art.