Natalie Bessell
Natalie Bessell (b. 1992) grew up in San Diego, California and has lived in Australia since 2021. She is a multi-media artist, with a focus on painting. Featuring figurative and abstract elements, her recent work primarily involves oil pastels on wood and painted glaze on ceramics.
She draws inspiration from her life as a new mother in a semi-rural beach town on the Mornington Peninsula, in the outskirts of Melbourne. Themes of nature, fertility, motherhood, and femininity have pervaded her work both before and after she became a mother. This reflects her more general fascination with the intersection of that which is ordinary and that which is magnificent.
Her work has been featured in galleries worldwide and can be found in collections such as the Adina Hotel Pentridge in Melbourne and the Pearl Hotel in San Diego as well as various private collections. She was selected for The Athenaeum’s 23rd (2014) and 32nd (2024) Juried Exhibitions in San Diego and Fenton and Fenton’s Rising Artist Exhibition in Melbourne (2021).