Meet Alana O'Hern

Alana’s journey to becoming an artist was anything but conventional. The daughter of a school principal based in rural Western Australia, she grew up in constant motion: new towns, new schools, new friends. With every move came the art of starting over. Learning to read a room, listening deeply, and adapting with grace (and the occasional eye roll). Change became her one constant companion.

Years later, after supporting her husband on the professional golf tour and raising their two daughters, Alana began to feel the longing pull towards something she couldn’t quite name. It wasn’t until her 40th birthday while travelling with her family that she stumbled into it (quite literally) when she walked into an art store. What began as an innocent attempt to entertain her daughters in a hotel room turned into an unexpected spark. Armed with thick acrylic paint and a plastic palette knife, she painted what she fondly calls a “truly terrible” self-portrait. But in that messy, freeing moment, something shifted. 

She loved how little she cared about the result; how liberating it felt to paint without precision or pressure. The seed was planted. When she returned home, Alana picked up the knife again, this time with intention. Within a year, she had painted twenty-three large canvases of women and held her first solo exhibition. 

The freedom she discovered in that moment has never left her. Alana continues to experiment fearlessly — from acrylics to oils, from abstracts to intricately detailed portraits of people, cars, flowers, and landscapes. Her work is a celebration of curiosity and courage, always exploring new ways to capture light, texture, and emotion. 

Today, Alana’s paintings are held in private collections, businesses, and hotels by wonderful clients all over the world. Through her bold palette knife strokes and intuitive layering, she continues to explore the spaces between control and release, chaos and calm, forever chasing the magic that lives just beneath the surface.