"My work is informed by spaces I have lived in, places I have been to, things I collect, people I collaborate with. I manipulate paint and colour in response to my subject matter. I like to think that ‘every picture tells a story’ but that each painting exists as its own world.

I try to find beauty in things which might seem insignificant or not of great importance, the ordinary or everyday. I have painted domestic objects, which may be loaded with cultural connotations – a willow-patterned piece of crockery from my grandmother, enamel tin plates and mugs bought from trading stores. Textiles and cloth have also played an important role in my work – I was influenced by the embroidery and beadwork created by women from the Limpopo province and for a time beaded my paintings with dots of paint. Colour and decoration have always been an important aspect of my painting. This decorative manipulation of paint may also be seen in more recent paintings of South African flora and fauna – while these works are hardly botanical, I hope that they capture a different reality." - Bronwen Findlay

"Materiality is an important component of Findlay's artmaking practice. This is immediately evident in her exuberant manipulation of paint. She finds the material properties of oil paint on canvas compelling and, in addition to any other subject or reference, Findlay's paintings are always about painting itself. She takes pleasure in the woven texture of canvas, and the bounce of the brush on its surface and consistently draws attention to the paint as physical matter independent of the object being depicted ...

"She delights in finding an equivalent in paint for the materials and processes she references, always asserting however the primacy of the paint over its descriptive function. Findlay works the paint hard, piping, layering, embroidering and beading with it, moulding impressions and stencilling with paint. She also uses paint as glue to adhere an assortment of 'stuff' onto the canvas, objects that range from discarded bits and pieces to treasured heirlooms, all integral to the painting and her vision. Sometimes the objects are embedded in the paint so thoroughly that they are hardly visible in the completed painting, but their presence has been critical in the making of the artwork." - Julia Charlton