Meg Sprouster found herself completing much of Up Ahead, now on show at Murray Art Museum Albury, after the sudden death of her sister from a stroke a few months ago.

“She died at her back door so it was completely out of the blue, no warnings whatsoever,” Sprouster said.

“I’d sketched out most of the paintings and then I had to paint them while I was grieving and I found it actually quite difficult.

“Normally I paint and it takes you into another place and I found it really hard to actually get started.”

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Up Ahead, also the name of the first painting in the collection, focuses on the rural landscape, places of shelter and water birds.

“One of the things that most people are starting to realise is that we have to live with other species for our survival,” the artist said.

“It was about us and where we live and what you see around you, and then it came about living with grief.”

She found strong colours quite confronting; Soaring was particularly challenging with its original bright orange sky and hot pink water.

“In the middle of the night I got up and walked out and looked at this painting and thought, ‘You’re going’,” Sprouster said.

“Because I couldn’t bear to have it in the house, so I got up the next day and I just put white over both of those.

“That was when I became consciously aware that I wasn’t able to live with that much colour.”

Yet when the exhibition was hung in MAMA’s Brindley Family Galleries, the artist realised it included quite a lot of yellow – her sister’s favourite colour.

“So yellow was allowed, but most of the other colours are quite subdued, actually,” she said.

Sprouster was one of six Border and North East artists chosen out of 65 applications to exhibit at MAMA this year.

“I felt really privileged to be able to showcase in MAMA because it’s such a beautiful gallery,” she said. 

“The response from people has been that it’s peaceful, that they’ve come in here and really felt the peace of the works, collectively.”

Up Ahead can be seen until February 3, with an Artist in Conversation event to be held January 10 at 6pm.

All works are for sale through Sprouster, who can be contacted on 0407 782 709. MAMA staff can answer price inquiries.