Becoming a full-TIME professional artist does not always follow a neat, linear trajectory, as Glenda Borchard attests. But nestled away in her studio high in the hills behind Noosa, Glenda has found her true north and it draws on a nostalgia of growing up in a working-class beach suburb in 1960s Australia.
As we talk, Glenda shares anecdotes of her diverse and colourful life and the bigger picture of how she became an accomplished artist comes into view – one brushstroke or vignette at a time.
Glenda says her artistic drive was apparent from a young age. As a child, she painted landscapes, often from an aerial perspective, of what she saw from her clifftop home on Sydney’s northern beaches. She would “make do” with her father’s house paints and a “big old house paintbrush”.
“Everyone in our street told me that I was going to be an artist,” she laughs.
That early experience of playing with light, landscape and perspective was a pervasive influence in Glenda’s early work.
“That aesthetic of flattened perspectives, bold shapes and strong colours stayed in my painting for about 20 years. I’ve always had a connection to natural forms, but I’ve been drawn to the storytelling of surrealism and the compositions of modernism.”
Glenda immersed herself in her art career in her early thirties while raising two boys and settling into family life in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. There were no art schools nearby, so she taught herself traditional landscape painting outside in the bush.
A serendipitous turning point came when Glenda met Neil Cuthbert, a well-known figurative painter, and began private tuition with him.
“Neil’s techniques and style really meshed with how I wanted to paint… I really found my feet there and have never looked back.”
Glenda also cites other influences: Anne Wallace for her cinematic stills and Jeffrey Smart for his urban and industrial landscapes with figures and “great use of primary colours and compositions”.
When Glenda began painting seriously, she found herself returning to scenes from childhood – her mother hanging out the washing, pastel-coloured houses, quiet suburban streets. Created initially in an impressionistic style, these works were as much an exercise in exploring painting techniques as they were in acts of remembrance.
Impressionism, she says, teaches you tone, brushwork and colour. It also mirrors the way memory itself works, softened at the edges, light-driven, incomplete.
As Glenda’s art career gained traction and her work was shown in multiple galleries, nostalgia became not just an emotional impulse, but a pragmatic decision.
In 2000 Glenda embarked on years of formal art studies culminating in a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Distinction) from the University of Wollongong.
It broadened her technical skills and her artistic horizons. It also opened the door to teaching, both as a high school art teacher and as education officer at Arthur Boyd’s Bundanon Trust. Glenda attributes this intense 20-year period to a time of enriched exposure to varied mediums, techniques and artists.
As our conversation takes natural twists and turns, Glenda keeps circling back to nostalgia – not as a recent pivot, but as a constant gravitational pull, one she orbited for decades before finally deciding to land squarely at its centre.
“I’ve taught for so long that you can get lost in styles because they’re all fun to explore, but your own recognisable style can become too diverse. Now I’ve decided to go right in and stay there [in nostalgia].”
In a post-COVID world marked by uncertainty and flux, Glenda maintains nostalgia through art can draw us back to the familiar and ground us in comforting memories.
“There is a sense of sturdiness in what we remember, in what we sentimentally refer to as ‘the good old days’. My work draws on personal, social and cultural experiences, fragments and glimpses shaped by memory. I aim to draw the viewer into the work, allowing them to project their own sense of familiarity onto it, forming personal associations and their own interpretations.”
Some images emerge straight from her imagination — beach balls, umbrellas, figures caught mid-gesture – while others require careful research, particularly when fashion or objects are central.
“I need to know if the colour is right. If the dress would really flare that way. I remember my mum; she was always beautifully dressed. The belts, the cuts, the colours. Those details matter.”
Glenda researches through photographs, films from the era, freeze-framing scenes, cross-checking shapes and patterns. Sometimes she tests compositions digitally before committing paint to canvas. But for all the preparation, composition remains the non-negotiable.
“If the composition isn’t right, the painting won’t work. Negative space is just as important as the subject.” Colour, for Glenda, is a big trigger and a vehicle for the story.
Pointing to a little umbrella painting, Glenda says, “As soon as I finished it, I remembered an aunty who had shorts that colour. It takes you straight back in time.”
She does allow herself some contemporising – stronger primaries, heightened contrast – but always anchored to the colour palette of the era.
Evolving as a practising artist means the demand for Glenda’s work is growing. She’s currently represented by (and is featured artist from April 2026) at Montville Art Gallery under the new direction of Kimberley Dove. Her work can also be viewed at Red Hill Gallery in Brisbane.
“Output is important. The more you paint, the more you know. You recognise a good painting immediately. I’m happy to let them go,” she smiles.
“If I kept everything, it would be like having a house full of relatives who would never leave”.
Teaching provided not just purpose but stability after being widowed in 2014. She met and married David Hughes – also widowed, also creative – five years ago and together they moved to the Sunshine Coast, drawn by lifestyle, warmth and proximity to family.
David is an artist and designer of retro travel posters, and their shared visual language has been quietly influential.
“We’re both very supportive of each other’s work. We have a lot of fun and collaborate occasionally. We spend a lot of time here [in the studio]. This is our real home.”
Glenda’s mother, who recently passed away at nearly 99 years of age, was also a painter. Some of the oils Glenda now uses were hers.
“I love that,” she says. “Working with her materials. I think, ‘Mum, I’d love to tell you what I’m doing’.”
Looking ahead, Glenda is clear about what she does – and doesn’t – want. She has no interest in chasing trends or saturating the market.
Her goal is to make high-quality works that stand alone – paintings that depict beauty, that invite viewers in and offer connection rather than commentary.
“Everything [in life] informs the work. I haven’t lost time. I’ve just gathered it.”
As our conversation draws to a close, it’s clear to me who Glenda Borchard is. She paints with the confidence of someone who has arrived not by force, but by return – to memory, to colour, to the quiet power of familiarity and nostalgia for a past rediscovered through art.