Kallista artist Kerry Willis will share her love of cartoons with hills art critics this month. 47913
UNLIKE most, Kerry Willis thrives on politics.
The Kallista caricaturist has a passion for capturing the world of political commentary in her cartoons.
She will share her passion for the art from at an exhibition in Monbulk this month.
Her latest show will open at the Friends on the Hill Café on Thursday 3 June.
She has been chosen as the café’s Artist of the Month.
The former Shire of Sherbrooke councillor said she had always been interested in caricature.
“When I was on council in the ’70s I was always interested and inspired by all those political type things,” Ms Willis said.
The 66-year-old took up the art of caricature when she retired more than 10 years ago.
She also took the time to concentrate on her painting.
Ms Willis decided to give in to her passion for art and joined several classes to perfect her craft.
She had always been fascinated by art since she was a young child, but there were always other things in life that took over.
But retirement gave her the perfect excuse to escape into a world of art.
Ms Willis said hard work was a key to following her dreams to become a cartoonist.
“I always had in my mind that’s the sort of thing I would like to do so I started off by disciplining myself to sit down one day a week, have a look at the front page of the newspaper and make myself come up with something,” she said, “some of which were pretty awful but others have worked out really well.”
Ms Willis said her love for cartoons stem back as far as primary school.
“I really enjoyed it then but I didn’t follow it up until later when I had the luxury of time in retirement to do something about it,” she said.
All her cartoons have some political spin, inspired by current day events.
Ms Willis has even had a couple published but dreams of one day having more in print.
“There would be nothing I would like more to have them published… it’s a good feeling knowing somebody thought they are good enough to publish,” she said.
The exhibition will also include six ‘fractal’ landscape paintings which are designed using the same pattern over and over again to give the impression of a landscape.
“They’re realistic but I wouldn’t call them abstract, using the stamping technique all the way through the painting,” Ms Willis said.
The show will run until 30 June at the Friends on the Hill Café, 104 Main Road, Monbulk, from 9am to 4.30pm, seven days a week.
