…a life spent paying attention…
Painter. Anthropologist. Lifelong observer of light, colour, and the places we call home.
Hello, and welcome…
There is a rhythm to my life that has remained remarkably unchanged for many years: before I start my work day I read, I walk, I notice, and I take photographs. Painting begins long before I walk in to my studio.
I have always been fascinated by beauty. Not the polished, perfect kind that demands attention, but the beauty that slips into ordinary life almost unnoticed. Winter light reaching across the hardwood floors in my kitchen. Horses standing in the mist before dawn. The fragrance of lemon myrtle released between finger and thumb. A line of old cedar trees cascading in to the ocean on Vancouver Island. The magnificent green of Cheshire after a long stretch of rain. These are the moments of beauty that have shaped the way I experience the world, and, in turn, the way I paint.
I live and work in Samford Valley, just outside of Brisbane, where my studio looks across trees, paddocks, birds, and changing light. My mornings begin slowly. Coffee brews on the stove, Theo and Louis wait patiently for our walk, and the valley wakes in its own time.
My paintings return again and again to florals, trees, and the landscapes that speak to me. They are less concerned with describing a particular place than with evoking the feeling of standing within one. I am interested in atmosphere, memory, belonging, and the curious way a landscape can become part of us - home- without our ever realising it.
I work almost exclusively on Italian linen using a palette knife and brush, building surfaces that respond to changing light throughout the day. Deep Prussian Blue, French Ultramarine, layered botanical greens, butter lemon yellows, rusted oranges, quinacridone maroons, mulberries, and the occasional unexpected note of crimson return again and again. They are colours I have lived with for years and continue to explore because they speak to the landscapes and gardens that have shaped my life. Every commission, however, begins somewhere different. My role is never to impose my palette, but to discover another person's relationship with colour. Some collectors are drawn instinctively towards winter greens, others carry a lifelong affection for blue, while still others speak of a particular pink, or the golden light of a childhood afternoon. Together we develop a palette that belongs to their story as much as mine. Collectors often tell me they discover something new months, even years, after a painting first arrives in their home. I think colour behaves rather like memory; it reveals itself over time.
I have never thought of a painting as decoration. It becomes part of the architecture of daily life. It witnesses birthdays, ordinary Tuesday evenings, dogs asleep on the floor, celebrations, sleepy afternoons, laughter, and the thousands of moments that eventually become the story of a home. Years later, photographs are taken beneath it, and the painting has become part of the elements of a home that make it feel like a warm hug.
I was born in England to a British mother and Moroccan father and spent much of my childhood in Vancouver, Canada. I later completed both a Bachelor and Master of Arts in Cultural Anthropology before spending more than twenty years working throughout remote and rural communities across the world. My work took me into villages, mining towns, mountains, deserts, and communities where listening mattered far more than speaking. Looking back, I realise anthropology never really left me. It simply found another language through paint.
In 2016, at the age of forty-four, I made the decision to become a full-time artist. Florence became my second classroom. I spent eighteen months living there part-time, filling my days with museums, churches, markets, galleries, long walks, train journeys, conversations, and sketchbooks. It changed the pace of my life as much as it refined my eye. Ever since, I have been far more interested in noticing than hurrying.
My home reflects the same sensibility as my paintings. I am drawn to old timber, books with softened spines, French bowls discovered in markets, linen that becomes more beautiful with age, generous tables, gardens that evolve over decades. My home tells the story of the people who live here. I have always believed that the most memorable homes are collected, nurtured and edited, rather than created.
Today my paintings live with collectors throughout Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Israel, and Sri Lanka. Each leaves the studio carrying traces of my own life before settling into another, where new memories begin to gather around it.
If you visit the studio, Theo and Louis will almost certainly greet you first. I hope you leave having found something that resonates with your own story, because that has always been my hope: not simply to paint something beautiful, but to create work that feels as though it has always belonged in your home.
For sales, commission enquiries, or collaborations please contact
Jamila: +61 409 309 193
jamila@jamilahumeart.com
To receive advance notice of exhibitions, releases, workshops, and my 'Musings' newsletter, I invite you to join my mailing list.
With love,
Jamila xx
As seen in
TARA’S STORY
“‘Spring Carnival’ gives me a feeling of childlike enchantment, of getting lost in a secret tree lined garden of wildflowers. There is depth and joy in this painting and it brings so much life to my room.
I first saw ‘Spring Carnival’ online instantly had that feeling that if there were a work to describe where my mind wanders - this was it.
I was overseas during the exhibition period and thought about this work daily. Upon my return home, by great luck, this work was still available and I knew it was meant to be mine.
I have had nothing but lovely communications with Jamila. I am forever thankful to Jamila for creating such a beautiful work that will take my mind to the garden for a lifetime. ”
- Tara, Sydney Australia