Northern beaches artists: Geraldine Simmons

Geraldine Simmons has long had a love affair with animals in her artworks, and when she draws them she always starts with the eyes.

"We're losing so many species and I think most people don't realise how important animals are," she said.

"It's always been part of our history to put animals at the bottom of our pecking order as if they don't really mean much to use and they're not that important, but they really are."

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Taking a look through the Corollary wildlife artist's works and you'll find tigers, giraffes, koalas, cheetahs, meerkats, lions, galahs and her beloved orangutans which she keeps coming back and drawing again. She's also completed the odd cat and dog artwork too.

In her early days as an artist she did illustrations of Australian wildlife characters for cards and children's books, but a trip to Borneo in 2005 changed everything.

"It was an absolute game changer because it set in stone that drawing animal portraits and raising awareness about wildlife conservation was what I wanted to do," she said.

It was there that she first drew an orangutans and it's something she comes back to time and again.

"The orangutans and primates are my favourites because they're so human like, they're just an example of how we can be," she said.

"They're the perfect role models on how we can behave because they're so gentle and they're so peaceful. They wouldn't hurt a fly, only to defend themself.

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"No matter what species I draw, it feels natural to me to portray sensitivity as the common denominator and it's something that animals don't hide and it inspires us to reconnect. I pour every ounce of emotion into my pieces and that's my way of respecting and honouring our incredible wildlife as our equal."

In 2007, a career highlight was when she was asked to display an artwork Humane Society International for an exhibition called Extinction Denied.

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"The artwork that I donated to that art exhibition, it was sold within 10 minutes of the art exhibition opening," she said.

"I was really blown away by that and the way that my art could held the Humane Society raise funds and awareness."

Recently, she drew her first tiger and it's among the artworks in her debut exhibition Sentient Beings: A Close-up Look Into the World of Animals Through Portraiture. Check out the exhibition at DiverARTy Gallery in Cromer until April 16.

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