MEET THE ARTIST
Growing up in South Africa with an artist father, I was surrounded by creativity and nature, inspiring my passion for art and design. I completed a Diploma in Interior Design while working as a Reggio Emilia Early Years Art Teacher. Represented early in my art career by Greenhouse Interiors, I later moved to Shanghai (2019–2021) as an Art Director and Teacher at an international kindergarten, becoming an independent artist known for my signature floral compositions. My husband and I came back to Perth, Australia and started working full time on building our art brand.
Over the years I was fortunate to have my art featured in multiple magazines across Australia including Adore Home, Home Beautiful, House and Garden and US magazine Origin.
I have collaborated with amazing Australian brands including Alive Body & Dusk and honoured to have stockists that align over the years including leading boutique furniture and homeware galleries - En gold, Norsu Interiors, & Life Interiors.
From early floral acrylic paintings on canvas my art has evolved, in collaboration with my husband Jayd over the years into an abstract expression of floral formation and structure. Jayd’s architectural background with Adele’s love of flowers provides the inspiration behind their sculptural pieces.
We wanted to manipulate a rigid material and make it appear fluid, reminiscent of the curves and movement of flowers. Each fold in the sculpture was meticulously thought about but we wanted each hand made sculpture to look effortless. We are so happy with the end result - my once hand painted flowers, re-imagined with a contemporary spin.
the start of it all
My signature floral, colour blocking style – hundreds of thick brush strokes make up each petal & flower.
GIVING BACK
What I am so grateful about is that we have been able to give back thousands of dollars to people in need through a percentage of profits from our small business. I have grown up watching my parents give back and help anyone who needed it. Travelling to India in my teenage years while visiting my missionary aunty in Bangalore & spending Christmas in an orphanage will be a forever engrained in my memory.
We have partnered with I=Change to donate $1 from every order to one of three life-changing projects that are close to our hearts and give back a percentage of our profits each month to various charities.
abstract experimentation
Going into a contemporary direction - my thick brushstrokes magnified & petals exaggerated.
my creative journey - Q & A with FRAMING TO A T
1. We’ve loved following your art journey and seeing your art mediums evolve. How was the process moving into sculpture, from prototyping, to producing your first collection?
"Sculpture is made by taking away, while painting is made by adding."
This quote by Michelangelo was playing in my mind while shifting towards a more sculptural collection.
From 2018 large scale, heavy textured floral paintings were my signature style, over the years - as artists do - it’s only a natural progression to evolve. I looked at the colour blocking and thick brush strokes that made up petals in each of my painted flowers. I wanted to magnify these thick brushstrokes and in 2023 my highly textured abstract collection was born. From a natural extension of constant exploration in this new abstract direction, I wanted to create even more textured artworks and went onto experimenting with clay sculptures.
Having clay be so fragile when working with it at a larger scale I had the idea to created large scale prints of my smaller clay sculptures, but the idea was always to create large scale 3D sculptures just as my large scale floral work has always been throughout the years.
Over the course of a year, I worked with my husband Jayd to explore larger 3D sculptures. Jayd's architectural background with my love of flowers provided the inspiration behind our 3D large scale exploration.
We experimented with a variety of materials which was a very long and painful journey as the materials we worked with were so fragile and then we both remembered working PMMA in our intermediate school in Auckland, NZ.
I remember thermoforming this material for a project. I must have been 12 and I still remember being so fascinated by how you could manipulate a once solid material!
I can't believe it took us all these years to revisit it but so happy we decided to move away from clay with our sculptures. We experimented with our first sheet and we were able to hand manipulate it. We drew reference to our large scale sculptural prints and over a few months honed in on all the skills we learnt with this new material and created our signature designs you see today.
What I have found rewarding moving into a sculptural direction is finding our own voice amongst the many other artists using this medium internationally and in Australia. I love that we are continually evolving and being creative as we find new ways to explore this medium that has been around for decades, and the best part is being so supported by all our new collectors and Framing to AT.
Experimenting with sculptural form allowed my husband and I to purely let movement be showcased, stripping everything else away. I love the simplicity and effortless look but creating our sculptures is a very deliberate process, we are very aware of every fold and the balance we have to create with pieces to make each flow.
2. From matte finishes to high gloss, pastel tones to deep burgundy or metallics, the colours and textures that your sculptural works are created in lend themselves to a range of interior styles. What inspires each colour palette and texture?
I have always been passionate about colour theory, it was the first thing I taught my kindergarten students when moving abroad to Shanghai to be an art director at two international campuses. Colour has meaning, different colours make people feel different things, brings back past memories, showcases individual personalities, different palettes and tones makes you feel calm or can ignite passion and energise you.
This is what brought our colour collections to life, where we offer all colours in either gloss or matte finishes to speak to different people. I love seeing who gravitates towards different colours and finishes. Gloss is usually a bolder, statement choice as colours appear more saturated, where matte is more subtle. Metallics usually have an instant pull to certain people and offering these ranges to everyone makes our art inclusive which I love.
3. Once you’ve finalised your colour palette, how long do these works take to create, from conceptualisation to finished product?
This is a very difficult question for me to answer as I put a lot of value on the creative journey over the course of the last few years to get to our actual sculptures you see today.
It could take us a few hours to a few days to remanipulate pieces and revisit them if the flow isn’t their but our signature design took months to create with so much trail and error but the creative process to get to where we are today has been years in the making.
4. Abstract works like your sculpture series lend themselves to both contemporary interiors, as well as traditional or heritage homes with a contemporary style influence. Has there been an interior setting that one of your clients have introduced one of your works that has surprised you? (ie. A corporate space, a fine dining/hospitality venue, unique residential home??)
It has been so fascinating seeing collectors from all walks of life and aesthetics resonate with our sculptures. From younger contemporary customers who have a minimal vibe to maximalist collectors who gravitate towards metallics and bolder colours. What I have found the most surprising is seeing old world and contemporary combine, a recent customer is renovating a beautiful heritage home, she kept the original stain window entrance door and bought a frosted emerald sculpture to tie in with the saturated colours in the stain glass patterns.
Bringing texture & flowers to life – 3D clay sculptures
Studying flowers, and becoming obsessed with texture and form, I wanted to explore the idea of bringing texture out of the canvas even more to resemble real flowers.
"FLOWERS WILL BE MY FOREVER MUSE. THEIR FORM, CURVES, COLOUR, THEIR EMINENT BEAUTY, HOW THEY EVOLVE, GROW, WITHSTAND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND BLOOM"
ADELE NAIDOO
3D large scale PMMA sculptures
The movement from clay to PMMA sculptures – wanting to experiment with larger scale and creating a more durable sculpture my husband & I remembered thermoforming PMMA material in school design projects. This became the start of our large scale sculpture journey.
Shop the look
