Natalija Vocanec is a contemporary Australian artist whose practice is shaped by environment, memory, migration, and a deep sensitivity to humanitarian and ecological concerns. Working across mixed media, including oils, raw pigments, encaustic, resin, drawing and painting, she creates works that invite the viewer to reflect on beauty, fragility and the relationship between people and place.
Born in Austria, Natalija migrated to Australia with her family in 1975 and was raised by Slovenian parents in the Wollongong region of New South Wales, south of Sydney. She currently lives and works in the Illawarra as a professional artist and art educator, based in Shellharbour.
Although she experienced a strict upbringing with little encouragement for creative expression, Natalija’s desire to make art remained constant. As a young adult, she was encouraged to pursue business and management rather than fine art, and spent several years working across other fields before returning to her true creative path. She later completed a Fine Arts Diploma at West Wollongong Technical and Further Education College, where she held her first solo exhibition at Karoona Gallery. At the time, the gallery primarily supported group exhibitions, making her solo presentation a significant early milestone.
Determined to continue developing her artistic practice, Natalija went on to further her studies in fine art through Curtin University in Western Australia, while navigating periods of personal loss and change. Drawing on both her management background and her artistic training, she opened Lepota Fine Art Gallery in the coastal village of Shellharbour, New South Wales. “Lepota”, meaning “beauty” in Slovenian, reflected the gallery’s purpose: to support local artists, present her own work, and create opportunities for the community to engage with art.
The art classes offered through the gallery quickly grew in popularity, eventually leading Natalija to focus more deeply on art education. More than fifteen years later, Da Vinci Art Studio continues to grow as a creative hub in Shellharbour, providing fine art tuition and supporting children, teenagers and adults in the local community.
Over the past fifteen years, Natalija has exhibited in local and regional exhibitions including Wollongong City Art Gallery, Project Contemporary Artspace, Wollongong Old Court House, Art Arena Gallery, Lepota Fine Art Gallery and Shellharbour Village Exhibition Space. Internationally, her work has been exhibited through The Artbox Project in Basel, Switzerland and New York, USA. Her work is held in private and corporate collections, including NAB Business Banking Centre Fairy Meadow, Netstrata Management Wollongong Head Office and Sage Hotel Wollongong.
Her practice has also intersected with community and charity projects. Media coverage in the Illawarra Mercury has included artworks created for fundraising initiatives such as support for Graham Wilson of The Four Kinsmen during cancer treatment, Christina’s House of Hope charity fundraiser for children affected by abuse, and Operation Art Australia, where student artworks were created for children’s wards across major New South Wales hospitals.
Natalija’s current body of work, From Above, explores aerial perspectives of the Australian coastal landscape. Using imagery from her own drone photography, she translates land, water, rock and atmosphere into layered mixed-media works that sit between landscape and abstraction. Through her use of diverse materials, she aims to capture the purity, movement and vulnerability of the natural environment. These works are both a celebration and a quiet call to attention: a reminder of the preciousness of the landscape, and the importance of preserving it for future generations.
