For 25 years, Noosa artist Tracey Keller has been painting colour, optimism and connection into people’s lives. Now she’s embracing a new chapter filled with creativity, collaboration and a few unexpected surprises.
Step inside Tracey’s Noosa studio and it feels less like an art space and more like a vibrant creative playground. Paintings in various stages of completion line the walls. Sculptures sit alongside brightly coloured furniture she’s lovingly upcycled. Vintage denim jackets wait to be transformed into wearable art. Music hums through the space, plants soften every corner and inspiration seems to spill from every shelf.
“This is my playroom,” Tracey laughs.
And she means it.
While many people know Tracey for her instantly recognisable portraits of children, pets and wildlife, the artist behind one of Noosa’s most recognisable creative brands is refusing to stand still. After 25 years as a full-time professional artist, she’s not slowing down – she’s simply pivoting.
“This used to be full for picking and packing online and wholesale orders,” she says, looking around the expansive warehouse studio.
“The wholesale orders have dropped, online has decreased slightly, so I’ve had to think, ‘Do I stay here or move somewhere smaller?’
“This is the vision of staying here and creating a beautiful place for creatives, and also for me to play.”
It’s a word she returns to often – play.
Experiment. Pivot.
“I’ve made this Instagram-worthy,” she smiles. “I want people to surround themselves with beautiful things. It’s like a childhood wonderland in here.”
That willingness to evolve has become one of Tracey’s greatest strengths.
When COVID changed retail overnight, she adapted to keep her staff employed. When her Hastings Street gallery no longer aligned with the life she wanted, she closed it on her own terms.
“It was a hustle,” she says. “Honestly, for my age, I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Instead, she’s creating something entirely different – a welcoming creative hub that will open its doors during Noosa Open Studios and continue evolving long after.
“I’m staying here and making this work.”
It’s hard not to be swept up in her enthusiasm.
One moment she’s talking about a striking new female surfer series inspired by Noosa and female empowerment. The next she’s unveiling colourful nursery concepts, enormous international commissions and hand-painted denim made from discarded jeans rescued from landfill.
“I’m obsessed by the amount of jeans that go into landfill,” she says.
Old jackets become wearable artworks. Oversized coats are reshaped into stylish statement pieces. Forgotten fabrics find a second life.
“I don’t even know how I’m going to monetise this,” she laughs. “I’m just having fun.”
That joy is contagious.
Yet behind every colourful brushstroke lies remarkable discipline.
People often ask how long one of her paintings takes to complete.
“My first response is 59 years,” she says with a grin. “Because it’s a lifetime.
“On the tools, maybe a week. But before I even get there, I’ve painted it in my head a dozen times. I’ll obsess over a painting for months before the brush even touches the canvas.”
As a professional artist, she works on multiple pieces simultaneously, allowing each one to evolve naturally. “You can’t narrow it down to how long it takes. It’s a process.”
It’s also why Tracey resists the idea that great artists are simply born with talent.
“I don’t think it’s talent,” she says.
“I think after 25 years of full-time practice, I should be good at it.”
Before becoming an artist, Tracey enjoyed a successful corporate career in retail design, product development and management, briefing artists rather than being one herself.
Eventually she decided she’d rather become “the technician”.
Those years in business now underpin every decision she makes as an artist.
“When kids tell me they want to be an artist like me, I say, ‘Always do your best at school. Don’t start off as an artist. Go out and learn life. Learn business. Learn to be your best at everything so when you decide to become a full-time painter, you’ve got purpose.’”
Purpose is a word that surfaces repeatedly throughout the conversation.
Years ago, a mentor asked her one simple question: “Why do you get out of bed every morning?”
Back then, she says, her answer wasn’t strong enough. “I wanted to make people smile.”
Today, her purpose has grown into something much bigger.
“My core purpose is to push paint around to create so that when the viewer looks at it, something positive or a smile registers in their heart.
“So when they leave that situation, that smile ripples out to the world so the world becomes a better place.”
It’s an idea that has carried her through extraordinary personal challenges.
Tracey speaks only briefly about multiple serious accidents, more than 50 surgeries and years of chronic pain.
She doesn’t dwell there.
Instead, she focuses on resilience.
“Chronic pain is my friend,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’m going to continue doing what my purpose is, which is to create joy – for me and for others.”
That philosophy extends well beyond the canvas.
She’s passionate about mentoring younger creatives, regularly painting in public so children can watch the artistic process unfold.
“I’ve had kids I met in Hastings Street when they were three. They’re now 15 or 16 and they still come back to watch me paint.
“What an honour to have impacted a stranger’s life. “It’s actually not me. Maybe it’s the energy.
“As an artist who wants to create positivity and joy, I have an obligation to do that with the leaders of tomorrow.”
Despite embracing traditional painting techniques, Tracey is equally enthusiastic about modern technology.
Far from fearing artificial intelligence, she’s chosen to understand it.
Five years ago, after reading claims AI would replace artists, she hired an AI specialist to test whether it could recreate one of her paintings.
“It ended up creating a soft-crested cockatoo with five beaks,” she laughs.
Rather than dismissing the technology, she embraced it. Today she uses AI to help refine business ideas, brainstorm creative solutions and even offer feedback when she’s stuck on a painting.
“I’ll take a photograph and say to ChatGPT, ‘Help’. It doesn’t paint my paintings.
“It helps me think.”
Tracey’s now sharing those lessons with other business owners and artists through workshops, encouraging them to see AI as another creative tool rather than something to fear.
“We can make the beast work for us.”
Back in the studio, her sculptures tell stories every bit as rich as her paintings.
Each bronze contains hidden symbols – a tiny bee reminding us to care for the environment, a clock representing the importance of time over money, little moments of humour and hope woven into every piece.
“We all go through our own pain,” she says.
“Yet joy and love always conquer.”
That sums up Tracey Keller perfectly.