Pittwater Life July 2024 Issue

plete with a red carpet entry
and a packed three floors of
the Art Gallery for the Archie
Party. “I was just constantly
pinching myself the whole
night!” she said.
Galloway Brown moved to
the steep heights of Alexander
Street, Collaroy in 1991
and fell in love with the
Northern Beaches.
“This is home, because I had
travelled all around the world
at this stage and I just had this
definite, strong feeling when
I got to here on the Northern
Beaches, that this was home,”
she remembers.
“I think I just loved the sort
of aloofness about it, it was
leafy and quiet and it just had
a little artistic quality about
it. A real community.”
A rainforest pocket in
North Narrabeen, bookended
by waterfalls, has now been
home for more than 20 years.
The love of art started in
Galloway Brown’s schooldays
and has sustained her
throughout her career as a
graphic designer and illustrator
(remember the Yellow
Pages!), when working for a
portrait photographer and as
an art teacher. She exhibits
her works locally in the annual
Pittwater Artists Trail
and is also a talented mail
sorter at Avalon Post Office
(Pittwater Life March 2023
edition).
She sketches Church Point
and Palm Beach scenes and
carries them around as paintings
in her head before they
become colourful canvases
evoking memories of special
Pittwater places. “The paintings
often go to people that
have a connection to that
place in some way,” Galloway
Brown says.
Even as an Archibald Prize
Finalist, she remains focused
on increasing her versatility
and taking on new challenges.
Galloway Brown admits to
still learning her craft. “I’m
learning to listen to the painting
more – where the painting
says ‘Stop!’. The painting
kind of tells you, ‘You’re not
to do any more… enough is
enough!’.”
*Stephanie will throw
open her sketch books at
her home studio during the
Pittwater Artists Trail on
27-28 July. More info
pittwaterartiststrail.com
CLOCKWISE FROM
OPPOSITE:
Stephanie in her
studio; a drawing
of an old local
icon, the Palm
Beach Boathouse;
her Archibald
Prize portrait of
Kathrin Longhurst
hanging in the
Art Gallery of
NSW; the early
artist sketching
at home, aged 21;
pushing the tour
bus (she’s second
from left) while
on her European
holiday in the late
1980s; a place of
solace, painting
in her North
Narrabeen studio.
Life Stories
The Local Voice Since 1991
JULY 2024 43