Ruby Bovill

Ruby Bovill is an emerging painter and qualified art therapist based on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people in Naarm / Melbourne. Bovill's paintings are an abstraction of her environment and identity. Bovill playfully explores foreground and background - creating illusions of landscapes extending deep within and beyond the edges of the canvas. Bovill's paintings embody a childlike and playful style that lead the viewer to imagine an other worldly place where stars dance and dragonflies are the size of birds. Bovill uses painting as a tool to connect with her creative, her unconscious self and with nature. Bovill's work provides viewers an opportunity to connect to nature themselves within the context of urban environments.

Whilst Bovill feels a connection to nature and explores this in relation to her personal journey – she would like to acknowledge that the connection to Country for First Nations communities exceeds her own and is of far greater cultural significance. As a white settler this dichotomy has been a challenge but through a journey of self-acceptance Bovill has been able to accept her own connection to nature alongside acknowledging First Nations connection to Country as two very different experiences existing simultaneously.

Alongside her painting practice, Bovill works as an art therapist with victim / survivors of family violence at a Naarm / Melbourne based non-for-profit. Bovill is passionate about providing safe spaces for people to engage in creative modalities and uses painting as a tool to mitigate against her own risk of vicarious trauma.