AOM June: Sonia Border

How quickly a month passes and so we change our monthly feature wall from our May Artist of the Month (AOM) Jan Russell and welcome our AOM for June – Sonia Border.

Sonia grew up on a sheep property at Quirindi, NSW and went to Boarding school in Tamworth then onto to Teacher’s college at Armidale. She began teaching at Coonamble where she met her husband and raised three children. They then purchased a cattle property at Goondiwindi in 1982 and set about becoming Queenslanders!

Whilst Sonia has drawn and painted all her life it’s only in the last several years that she had the time to try and develop her hobby. Since 2000, she has attended many McGregor summer school workshops in Toowoomba where she enjoyed working with Michael Winters and Donald Waters.

After losing her husband in 2009 and having lived in the bush all her life, Sonia is now retired and living in Noosaville where she enjoys painting with the Timbeerwah group. Sonia finds the coast a new challenge: new scenery, coastal birds; plants etc. She says it’s lush, green countryside and ocean waves are far more difficult to capture in her paintings than the western plains ever were!

Sonia has won awards such as the North West art prize (1983) and prizes at various country art shows. She also held her own solo exhibition in Goondiwindi in 2002.

Over the years she has sold more than 100 artworks, including sales from Goondiwindi, Toowoomba, Kilcoy and Pomona Galleries as well as private commissions.

Please come down to the Kilcoy Courthouse Art Gallery during June and view her wonderful artwork.