Artists Statement.

Bohie Blackwood (BOHIE, she/her, b. 1987) is an experienced artist, designer and illustrator based in Victoria, Australia.  Her visual practice spans multiple mediums with a primary focus on large scale wall murals, contemporary fine art, and client led illustration commissions. 

BOHIE is inspired by nature at a micro level, and uses the natural world as a metaphor for the human experience. Her narrative driven artworks are inherently innocent, as if seen through the eyes of an empathetic child with a curious nature. Her visual art toys with a dichotomy between the safety of home and the wildness beyond; the known and the unknown. 

Her research-led concepts express gentleness and empathy towards her audience, inviting them to pause and be present with moments of vulnerability and care in our rapidly changing world. She asks the viewer to question our current circumstances and create mindful connections both with the natural world and with each other. 

Having studied Drawing and Printmaking at the Australian National University, BOHIE went on to receive the “Award for Excellence” in Graphic Design and Digital Media at The Canberra Institute of Technology, graduating in 2010. 

Over the last 14 years, BOHIE has been self employed full time as a practicing commercial and mural artist, with a celebrated background in hand crafted branding and hand painted signage. Her early career held a strong focus on reviving the dying craft of traditional sign writing, commissioned for large scale hand-painted signage and mural projects across the country with such brands as Jacob’s Creek, UBER and Westfield. Her illustration and design work has been featured on streetwear brands from America, Canada, Australia and the UK. 

She has given keynote talks with the likes of AGDA (Australian Graphic Design Association), featured in Ambush Gallery’s nationwide female street art showcase “HERE I AM: ART BY GREAT WOMEN”, and was invited artist, guest speaker and media spokesperson for Surface Festival of Street Art (2022). She was a guest speaker for YWCA female leadership conference, She Leads (2022), and has been interviewed on ABC radio, ABC news, NINE news, and a number of international publications such as leaders in global typography showcases, Good Type and Inky Goodness. 

BOHIE has designed and facilitated countless large scale public murals and community-focused mural projects, working with local and state governments across Australia. Her unique approach towards community-led, co-created public mural works has engaged successfully with community groups, community services, and public and private schools to create meaningful placemaking that focus on raising vulnerable voices and community wellbeing.

Her digitally and traditionally created visual art has shown in galleries, mural painting festivals, on-brand collaborations, artist run spaces and award shows around Australia as well as internationally in solo and group exhibitions. Her emotionally-sensitive artwork was chosen as one of two national artists to be digitally projected across two city blocks for Enlighten Festival, Canberra (2021), as well as being shortlisted for the Goulburn Regional Art Prize (“Seeking Refuge”, 2020), and exhibited at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA for the show “ReExamining Conservation”, (2022) curated by sci+art wildlife conservators, Creature Conserve. 

In 2023 BOHIE co-authored “Street Art as a Vehicle for Environmental Public Communication” with thought-leaders from the Australian National University Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, which was published internationally in the Journal for Science Communication. She was interviewed about her work for this project in a short film that debuted on the big screen at the National Film and Sound Archive. 

She was recently commissioned as the first artist to paint the walls of the Gandel Atrium in the Australian National Museum for the globally touring exhibition “Riding the Olympic Wave; Breakthrough Sports”. She has partaken in art residencies in Mexico, Canada, and England.