By arts editor HELEN MUSA

A Canberra landscape painter who only recently moved to the national capital has been chosen as the campaign artist for the 2026 Affordable Art Fair Sydney, one of Australia’s biggest art-market events, which attracts around 90,000 visitors.

Artist Bridie O’Brien has been selected to provide the hero image for the fair’s international advertising campaign, with her painting Moonlighting As A Vagabond set to feature prominently in promotional material for the event.

O’Brien, who began painting full-time in 2020 after a long career in music, declares herself “still a little surprised and very chuffed” by the selection.

“It’s been a busy few years,” she says. Since turning her attention to painting she has sold around 400 works, including 120 this year alone through art fairs and private sales.

Her recent success includes selling all six paintings she exhibited in the St Vincent’s College Charity Art Exhibition in Potts Point, a fundraiser for Open Support, which assists women and children escaping domestic violence.

Raised on a farm in country NSW, O’Brien first trained as a musician, graduating from the Australian Institute of Music in 1998. Her career took her around the world, from busking in Scotland to living on a remote Caribbean island. In 2019 she toured nationally with Icehouse, The Church, Mental As Anything and The Sunnyboys while playing lead guitar for Do Re Mi.

Now working largely with a palette knife, she draws inspiration from travel, bushwalking, snow camping and extended periods in the outdoors.

Her work has been recognised in major competitions including the Paddington Art Prize, the Lethbridge Landscape Prize and the National Capital Art Prize.

After 27 years in Sydney, O’Brien recently relocated to Canberra, where she says the surrounding mountains and bushland have made her feel “at home and at peace”.

 The 2026 Affordable Art Fair runs at Carriageworks in Sydney from November 5 to 8.

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