Artwork
Trina does a lot of art. She works now mostly on traditional oil painting at a professional level but started out and made her name in contemporary art.
Trina originally exhibited as an artist of contemporary work, both on a solo and joint basis, and had work accepted into the National Gallery of Australia and for exhibition at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. In earlier years she won prizes for outstanding achievement, drawing, and artistic distinction, and was runner-up for the Mandorla Art Award in 1996. Much of her initial work was structured around found or used objects. Trina also won a scholarship for a short residency with Arthur Boyd in Australia. Later she worked on the ‘Party Animals’ public installation art project, again in DC.
These days Trina mostly does portraits as well as old master copies and mash-ups. She often has fun on paintings and photographic portraits of the family whether in a classical or stylized fashion. Trina also creates powerful nude portraits that bring out the full character, sometimes unrealised or under-appreciated, of her guest sitters.
Away from such work, Trina also does still lifes, and Italian landscapes. Trina has pursued her artistic visions and projects on-site in America, Australia, China, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Scotland. She maintains a close interest in more contemporary artistic compositions. Somewhere along the way Trina completed an MA in contemporary art at Sotheby’s. You can see her work and ideas on Instagram @trinaoharapainter
Trina has an art studio and basic photographic studio in Perugia. Using these studios, she has undertaken art-related commissions for a geographically dispersed mix of clients — from America, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Chile, China, Egypt, England, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Scotland, and Singapore. These commissions include portraits, nudes, landscapes, still lifes, professional and modelling shoots, as well as the artistic equivalent of costume dramas. She has also undertaken commissions for trompe l’oeil, murals and mosaics, and photos. In what’s left of her time, Trina teaches painting on a private basis and provides content for other, budding artists to use in developing their own individual techniques.
Trina has featured on a podcast about wellness and transformation through the practise of art. She has also lectured on dimensions in art to medical practitioners. You can find out more about Trina through her website (https://trinaohara.com/) as well as her Instagram account.
At various points Trina has taught art on a formal basis at educational institutions to people of all ages from primary school through university to continuing education. She has also conceived and organised workshops whether on a private basis or as art projects for public galleries and museums.
Overall, Trina has been active with institutions both in Australia and overseas; most notably in Japan, Scotland, and Italy. In Japan, she developed an art-school program which included work ultimately exhibited to members of Japan’s imperial family. In Italy she has created art-related opportunities for enthusiastic, typically younger, travellers.
Trina’s activities reflect her great interest in the flow of art over time, her deep knowledge of art history, and her wide-ranging ability in artistic techniques perfected at the highest level. She is proficient in many visual art techniques: extending from sketching and life drawing, through stage & set design and printmaking, to classical atelier-style painting. Trina also studied Chinese brush painting at the Nanjing Arts Institute in the mid-1990s. As part of her training, Trina has copied a substantial number of Caravaggio, baroque, and other realist or old-master artwork from the period 1500-1900.
