Community & Business
11 May, 2026
Finding Form in Chaos: Nobby's Expressionist
Angela Hart is well known around these parts and so is her art. Eclectic, vibrant, impressions and raw, defined expressions are what define Angela’s work. Her work frequents shows, galleries and group exhibitions. This week The Clifton Courier takes a look at what makes Angela and her practice tick.
Fans of fine art would look at Angela’s work and use words much like those used in the by-line.
Her work ebbs between impressions of the world and expressions of Angela’s experience.
For those less interested in the finer nuances of art, that all means that Angela’s work is messy, humanely so: it's chaotic, emotional, unsure and in parts, ugly - the sum of which amounts to a beauty we can’t explain.
Art communicates the incommunicable.
Angela’s work is true to that tradition.
She has spent much of her life with horses, riding them ever since she can remember, campdrafting and later training horses.
She’s always drawn and sketched, especially horses.
But in 2000 Angela suffered a serious accident.
In 2025 nerve pain in her shoulder, that, and a host of other challenges tested Angela.
It meant that a lot changed in her life.
For one, she couldn’t ride horses any more.
It’s a change you can also see in her art.
It’s then that her work became more expressive.
“Those works before, they were tranquil, they were fun....everything was a lot tighter, I was trying to do everything by the rules.” Angela said of her work before the accident.
Her work since, has taken quite a drastic turn.
In the depths of her challenges, Angela turned to art.
She defines her practice now as ‘finding form in chaos.’
Describing her practice she told The Clifton Courier how she’ll paint a line or a dash and see what she can create from it.
She no longer worries about keeping her work ‘tight,’ or in line with ‘the rules.’
Her work is an audacious exploration of the form of things and their spirit or essence.
A horse and rider may be one thing, the essence is how it makes you feel.
It’s this interplay between how something looks and how something feels that inspires Angela’s work.
It's that expression of her experience, of what she went through, that defines her work, bringing its signature staccato beauty.
Indeed it’s because beyond the artworks them-selves, Angela’s practice is in a much larger way, her own attempt to find form in the chaos of the accident’s aftermath.
Angela lost everything, she couldn’t ride anymore, she was alone with two kids.
Her art was the form in the chaos, its brilliance is entrenched in its authenticity.
Angela’s work is real, not because she wants it to appear so, but because it serves a higher purpose than just looking like art. It is art.
Angela is also apart of the Back Roads Artist Collective, made up of local, artists from Clifton, Wyreema, Greenmount, Nobby and Cambooya.
Angela was a finalist for the 2024 Australian Artist Awards.
Her work is amongst those of the Back Road Artists who have a year round exhibition at the Blossom Café at Greenmount.
The group also has an exhibition coming up at the Surat Regional Gallery.
Angela’s work is also in an upcoming group exhibition in Goondiwindi Regional Gallery, called “Wide Open Sky.”
“I went from being quite formly, to this scrambled bloody mess and that's just how our brains are,” Angela said.
Her practice is a process.
“That’s what art does to you too, you just get in there and you get into your mindfulness and you can just stop thinking. I don’t overthink anything in my paintings...I just gotta put something on the canvas then create something from it,” Angela said.
“The ‘Isness’, it is what it is.” It’s a process of acceptance. After her accident Angela, like anyone, wanted to get back to normal.
“It took me a long time, I fought it, I fought it for a long time.” Angela said.
But sometimes we can’t get back to what was. Life throws too much our way and it can’t ever be the same.
Angela can’t ride anymore. Something she loved and had done her whole life. A whole part of her was ripped away.
In that chaos, she found the form of her art.
The way it grounds her, allows her to express and communicate, to weave whacky, wonderful scenes and create art that leaves viewers in awe.
Angela’s work is an act of acceptance, and a courageous attempt to live in spite of loss. Planning to live to 105, Angela isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
“I’m ready, I’m ready to go again, bring it on!” she said.
