“I enjoy painting; it is something that I really have a passion for,” says local Artist Glen Southwood.

Orange City Life caught up with Glen last week at the HERE/ NOW Exhibition at the Orange Regional Gallery. Glen is one of 130 local artists currently on display in the popular annual exhibition.

A long-time member of the Orange Art Society, Glen works in a range of mediums including oils and pastels, but she says water colour is what she really loves.

“It is exciting to see what the water does, how it moves the paint around. It is a case of judging the amount of paint on your brush, the water on your brush and the amount of water on the paper, but you get exciting results. Some of them you don’t expect, some of them you try to control them, but then there's more…  and I love the transparency.”

Water has played a large part in Glen’s life. Growing up at Grays Point on the Port Hacking River, Glen spent much of her youth paddling the creeks and waterways that ran through the Royal National Park.

“It is how my husband and I met, we were canoeist,” says Glen. “And we used to do a lot of river canoeing. My family, before I even met my husband, we did most of the rivers on the east coast, nut my husband and I canoed down rivers in Europe. We tossed our jobs in and went over there for twelve months and spent six months on the rivers — living in a tent for the six months!”

Art has also been a lifelong passion, says Glen, starting in her early days at school.

“My school projects were all pretty well illustrated, the written content was pretty poor, but I enjoyed doing the illustration,” she says.

“I've now been retired for quite some time, so that's how long I've been a member of the Orange Art Society.”

Two years ago, a bad spinal injury left Glen with significant mobility impairment, but it hasn’t stopped her painting.

“I'm actually a quadriplegic, but I'm able to hold a brush so I'm still painting!” she says.

“I was drawing in the hospital! I was in hospital for a year and once I managed to move my arms and feed myself, I picked up a pencil and that was it. I was determined. I drop it quite often, but I can hold a brush and I can hold a pencil… it is a wonderful outlet for me.”

Along with her piece in the HERE/NOW exhibition you can also find Glen’s work in the Orange Art Society Gallery in the Cultural Centre, and at the Art pop-up in the Summer Centre.