Pushing traditional into experimental and loose watercolour, Libby looks for new ways of working with the medium’s dynamic fluidity and transparent qualities, mixing with pigment. An appreciation for the natural world informs Libby Derham’s practice. The work seeks to capture her sensory experience within it and the immersive qualities of En plein air. Growing up with a forest for a backyard, Libby was drawn to the avian world from a young age. Through her use of colours and mark-making of the birds’ layered sounds and movements, Libby transcribes birdsong to line.

An award-winning artist, Libby is a fourth-generation water-colourist, passionate at pushing the medium into the contemporary space. She won the Annie Tan Memorial Watercolour Award - Queensland Regional Art Awards (2021) and has been a finalist in multiple local and national awards including Splash: McClelland Contemporary Watercolour Award (2021), QRAA (2020), Local Artist Local Content (2023/2022/2021/2020) and Du Rietz Art Awards (2021/2020). Further career highlights have included being recipient of Sunshine Coast Arts Foundation 'Gifted' program and involvement in Sunshine Coast Council’s project ‘The Keeper’. She completed art training at Surrey Institute of Art and Design in the UK (1996-1998), before migrating to Australia in 2000 where she studied Teaching and Visual Art at Monash University (2000-2004). Libby has been a full-time artist since 2021.