About

Regina Noakes is a significant Australian artist, who has won many art awards including the Lorenzo Medici 4th prize at the 2003 Florence Biennale and selected as a finalist in the 2007 Portia Geach Memorial Award exhibition.

Regina has participated in international biennales and her paintings are represented in numerous private, corporate and public collections around the world, including The British Government Art Collection, Ministry of Water Resources, Sultanate of Oman, Fulham Palace, London, The Singapore Economic Board, Singapore and the University of Cambridge.

Regina is a full time artist living in Western Australia. She studied at the Art Students League, Boston, MA, USA; Institute of Education, Singapore, Dip.T. in art and music; Licenciate of Music, Australia; Associate of Music Australia; Art residency, painting / assistant to Professor Antonio Napoli, Anacapri; art residency Pollena Trocchia, Campana Regione, Mt Versuvius, Napoli

Regina has been teaching painting and given workshops at Fremantle Arts Centre, Western Australia since 2005. Regina has held over sixty solo exhibitions in Australia, Italy, USA and Malaysia.

For a certain kind of artist, all the ages and times of one’s life are present while painting. This is how I would express my own aesthetic experience. My paintings are quite often a continuation of my interest in autobiographical inflected narrative, with characteristic emphatic line, bold and lyrical.

I try to describe, in visual terms, personal experiences, observations, and also memories. The people depicted in my paintings are never a true likeness. The paintings are not about what I have seen, but about how I feel about what I have seen.

- Regina Noakes

I live in Perth with my husband, Madeline our German Shepherd, 1 cat Bonnie, now (Tom recently passed) and several goldfish, all of whom need constant feeding.

Our children have left home, have their own families and live near by. My studio is a large room on the upper part of our house. Quite often when I go up the stairs to my studio with coffee and cheese in hand I have absolutely no idea of what I am going to paint about. I am really depending on my spiritual values. I am classical trained in piano and like to have music on all the time. Everyday I tune in to the various classical concerts on YouTube and by the end of the day I would have mentally attended 3 or 4 complete performances! This does help me to leave the world behind while I paint.

I normally paint for 7 to 8 hours a day. This is of course broken up time. There are usually several paintings in progress at any time, with me not knowing which one I will feel compelled to work, on any given day. There is a certain mystique that prevails; leaving a painting at the end of a day’s work and a certain feeling that one requires so that it is right to begin work again the next morning.

When a painting does not seem right, I put it aside and go on to another. Often there are several of such pieces lingering in this problematic state as I strive to reconcile each one. This process may continue for many long months until “a moment of illumination of sorts” arrives in which solutions become clear and several pieces are resolved in rapid succession.

Many artists feel the need to make copious preliminary studies before they begin work on an actual painting. They seek to gain a thorough understanding of every element they may encounter, and then they plan an overall design and structure before proceeding. While this may serve the needs of some artists, it is a working procedure that does not suit my sensibilities. My sketchbook is most often the canvas that will eventually become the finished painting. Work begins with a mere hint, a suggestion, an open question, be it a line, a texture, a colour, a value, a shape, a form, or even the timbre or word from the music that is being played. From this, imagination takes suggestions and finds accidents – promotes accidents – that gives fresh insight.

When I work, the inherent geometry, the architectural structure of a painting evolves in layers of superimposed second thoughts, not in a preconceived composition when all is determined before hand.

Sometimes there is a quiet sadness in the paintings with the figures seeming to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. At times, that experience may be light and joyous.

All I am trying is to do is to capture the quiet, poetic, and personal description of the inner self.

Career Highlights

Solo Exhibitions

2025: Solo Exhibition Intermezzo. Art2Muse Gallery, Woollahara, NSW
2024: Outside the Window, Red Hill Gallery, Brisbane
2023: Good Times, Inaugural Solo Exhibition (43 large works) @Gullotti Galleries, Cottesloe, WA
Mixed Gallery Exhibition, Galeria Aniela, Nowra, NSW
Several Commissions for clients
2022: Framing my Life, Art2Muse Gallery, Woollahara, NSW
2021: Solo Exhibition Art2Muse Gallery, Woollahara, Sydney
2020: SUMMER 2020 Red Hill Gallery, Brisbane
2019: Between Memories and Dreams, Red Hill Gallery, Brisbane
From Dreams to Memories, Galleria360, Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
Dreams and Reality, Art2Muse Gallery, Sydney
2018: Themes and Enigmas, Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney
2017: Small Windows, Red Hill Gallery, Brisbane
In My Own Place, Art2Muse Gallery, Sydney
Lifelines, Galleria 360 Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
2016: New Perspectives, Galleria 360 Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
Edge to Edge, Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney
2015: Then and Now, Galleria 360, Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
Mostra Personale di Regina Noakes, Hotel Cellai, Firenze
Regina Noakes More New Paintings, Art2 Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney
Stage and Circumstance, Linton and Kay Galleries, Perth
2014: A Story in Parts, Galleria 360 Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
Opposite Attraction, Duo with Dean Riley, Red Hill Gallery, Brisbane
New Paintings, Art2Muse Gallery, Double Bay, Sydney
2013: Mostra Personale Palazzo Riccardi, Firenze

Selected Invited Group Exhibitions

2024: Niagara Falls History Museum, Ontario Canada
Paintings for Fashion Show @Palazzo Moncado, Municipality of Caltanissetta, Sicily
Invitation Exhibition @ Liceo d’arte Manzoni Juvara and Conservatorio Vincenzo Bellini, Sicily
Water for Life, Maya Museum Cancun, Mexico
2020: Celebrating Women, International Women’s Day, Red Hill Gallery, Brisbane
“Expression Femme”, Parisien division, “MG PARIS”, Ville Lumiere, Galerie Dobkine & Kie, PAR, Affordable Art Fair, MILANO
2019: Mostra collecttiva – Women in Art – La Galleria360 Arte Contemporanea, Zervas Art e Club UNESCO, FIRENZE
Rhythms of Emotions, Galleria 360, Arte Contemporanea, Firenze
2018: Subi in Blooms, Linton and Kay, Perth
Summer Show, Linton and Kay, Subiaco Perth, Summer Show, Linton and Kay, West Perth
2014: Telethon Italia, Linea Spazio Arte Contemporanea; Solo Palazzo Riccardi, Firenze, Italy
2013: Mostra Personale, Palazzo Ricardi, Firenze, Italy; ‘Small Stories’ solo exh Gadfly Gallery, Perth
2012: ‘Quartet’ Redhill Gallery, Brisbane; Masters and Artists of Today, Galeria Tondinelli, Rome; Museo d’Arte,
Chianciano Terme, Siena, Italy; Posh Auction, Sydney; Three Arts Club. Chicago, Illinois.
2011: Biennale of Chianciano; ‘Four Seasons’, Barcelona Showcase, Spain; ‘Women artists and their Landscape, Pace Gallery, Kuala Lumpur; Perth Concert Hall, Art Collection Display
2009: Cossack Art Prize, Western Australia; Three Arts Club, Chicago, Illinois.
2008: Perth Concert Hall; Posh Auction, Sydney.
2007: Portia Geach Memorial Award exhibition, Sydney; Garrison Arts Centre, NY; Friedrichstrausse Art; Centre, Berlin; Galerie Seyffert-Stahl, Berlin; Deck Chair Theatre Auction, Perth; Posh Auction, Sydney; Australian High Commission New Delhi; Singapore Art Festival; Sydney Art Fair.

Selected Achievements

2024: Finalist Cossack Art Awards, Cossack, WA
Selected to participate, International Art Exhibition, 9^th Edition, Niagara Falls History Museum, Ontario, Canada
2023: Finalist Mid-West Art prize, Geraldton Art gallery, WA
Finalist Art on the Pier, Rosebud, QueensCliff South Melbourne
Selected to participate international art exhibition, Maya Museum, Cancun, Mexico
2020: Selected to participate in Parisien Division, “Expression Femme”, MG PARIS
2018: Selected to participate in Telethon Italia, Italy
2015: Monograph REGINA NOAKES: Critical analysis of works, 1988 to 2015, By Virginia Bazzechi Ganucci Cancellieli, Publication sponsored by Palazzo Strozzi and Galleria 360 Arte Contemporanea, Firenze 2014 Artist for Telethon Italia, Florence, Italy.
4 Australian Visual Arts grants.
2013: Finalist Mandorla Art Award
2011: Leonardo Award, 3^rd Prize, Biennale of Chianciano.
Finalist Cossack Art Prize
2011: Feature artist, Cystic Fibrosis Exhibition WA
2009: Finalist Cowra Regional art prize.
Finalist Cossack Art Prize:
2007: Portia Geach Memorial Award; 1^st Prize Manhattan Arts Exhibition,
2003: Lorenzo Medici gold medal 4^th prize, Florence Biennale.

Collections: Private and Corporate

The British Government Art Collection
Sting MBE
Eric Clapton, London and Bahamas
Royal College of Music, London
Fulham Palace, London
University of Cambridge
University of Norwich
University of London
Ministry of Water Resources, Sultanate of Oman
Singapore Economic Board
Jean and Charles Schultz Information Centre,SSU, California
Brunswick Corporation, Illinois
Visual Arts Centre, Eastern Washington University
WomanMade Inc. Chicago
Atelier International, New York
Perth Electoral Commission
Toyota Australia
Data Analysis Australia
Hilton Hotel, Brisbane
Women’s Aid Abroad, Malaysia
Balya Cancer Foundation, Perth
Evans and Tate Wineries
Best Western Palms Resort, Broome
Hale Boys Grammar School, Perth
Methodist Ladies College, Perth. Many Private Collectors, Australia and abroad.