Meet Ali McNabney-Stevens
Ali McNabney-Stevens is a Melbourne based British artist who earned her Honours Degree in Design and History of Art from Edinburgh College of Art in 1991. She furthered her studies in London at a number of St Martin’s Fine Art Summer Schools where she developed her passion for painting.
Over the years Ali’s versatility of style and courage as a painter has grown along with her confidence. There is a definite sense of self emerging in every new artwork that she creates…she has now made the move to full time painting.
You may recognise Ali's style, she has had her paintings featured on Offspring and The Block. Ali has also been profiled in some of the leading Interior and Design magazines in Australia.
We are thrilled to have some of her paintings in store and available to our customers. We sat down with Ali and asked her a few questions about painting and life and I think we fell even more in love with her after hearing her answers!
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Most recently and also if I am stuck I seem to sub consciously return to landscapes or images from my home in the UK. Industrial Harbour which is one of the images from my most recent limited edition print series was inspired by the Harland and Wolff ship building yard in Belfast. My most recent canvas Dee Street has come from the same place in my mind….big iconic yellow cranes and cold coloured concrete forms…. I am very very happy with them.
Do you like to surround yourself with certain things when you paint?
More often than not I don’t surround myself with anything other than the mess in my studio, I do however listen to ALOT of BBC Radio Four podcasts the most recent being ‘Great Lives’. The latest Great Life that I have been listening to has been John Steinbeck…. I lose myself in the radio and before I know it its lunch time and I have missed coffee.
What makes you happy?
The sense of achievement that I get from painting something that I am very proud of is happiness in the making but it doesn’t last long because I am onto the next painting and so on. Really good Tom Yum soup makes me very very happy too.
What is your best kept wardrobe secret?
I don’t know that I have one. I am forever trying things on and thinking ‘ why can’t that work with that’, those are too long, those are too tight, I must get a pair of those to work with that, I really need a bright pink one of those…so as you can see if someone has a good wardrobe secret I would like them to share it with me.
What's the thing you miss most about Britain?
Europe, London and easy access to my mother and friends.
Favourite song on your playlist at the moment?
Finlay Quaye/Beth Orton ‘Dice' and Kurt Vile ‘On Tour'
What do you consider your biggest creative achievement?
Biggest creative achievement has been to team up with my Manager Julia Green of Greenhouse Interiors and realise my long term dream of having a career that involves my artwork and is a full time business.
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