La Boca is delighted to present occasional collaborator and long time supporter of ArtCafe, Frances Mullarkey’s, first exhibition with the project. Long-time traveller and art tutor at Newcastle & Sunderland Universities , Frances was also theArtCaféproject’s resident guiding hand during the NewcastleGatesheadPride evening art classes hosted by LaBoca in the summer of ’06.

"This collection of my work is inspired by a recent six months spent in Australia . I was based in Adelaide but spent many weeks travelling in the Outback where I came to love the wildness and colours of this desert environment. The scale and vastness of the landscape was very different from anything I had experienced in Europe : very few people in an enormously dynamic space fundamentally unchanged for millions of years.

To capture the light and colour of this very different world I had to find a new palette. I hope I have conveyed my awe and excitement with these new colours...

I have painted for as long as I can remember. Over the years I have been greatly influenced by the work of many artists, especially so when I have been able to live and paint in the towns, villages and countryside that provided their inspiration and to see for myself the connections they must have made to be able to produce their work. India , Scotland , Mediterranean countries and now Australia have been particularly significant for me.