Courtney Brims: Brisbane artist attracts global following for adorable art

Everyone wants a piece of Brisbane artist Courtney Brims. Her heartwarming and intricate pictures of nature have hung in New York and London galleries, graced Zimmermann’s catwalks and likely enlivened the walls of many an English manor.

When Courtney Brims was a girl growing up on acreage at Samford, she was interested in only three career paths: art, zoology or mowing grass.

The arrival of the family’s errant pet cow, Zebedee – a Santa Gertrudis from St George – cut short her lawn-mowing aspirations, but Courtney has gone on to create her own signature blend of the first two careers as an international artist known for her intricate natural history illustrations with a gothic twist, and commercial commissions ranging from Bavarian Bier Cafe pin-up girls to fabric designs for high fashion label Zimmermann.

Artist Courtney Brims draws at her parents’ Samford property. Photo: Russell Shakespeare

An unassuming but wildly talented artist, Courtney, 34, is something of a modern-day Beatrix Potter, inspired by her love of animals and the childhood freedom she and her elder sister Stephanie enjoyed in roaming the countryside and swimming in the rainforested creek on the Samford property where their parents still live.

“Growing up in a place so rich with wildlife was a constant source of inspiration. There were always snakes, frogs, turtles, platypuses, baby hares and all kinds of native birds,” Courtney says.

Courtney loved drawing, encouraged by her mother, who worked as a graphic designer at QUT, and her father, a chemical engineer who cultivated a vegie patch and would show her plants and animals around their property.

Columbia Basin Pygmy Rabbit, by Courtney Brimms

Artists and authors such as Beatrix Potter, Jeannie Baker, Graeme Base and Roald Dahl also inspired her.

“It was always my dream to be an artist but I think as I got older, it seemed to be more of a fantasy than something I could make a career out of,” Courtney says.

Now she has realised that dream, working from a leafy townhouse studio at Everton Hills on Brisbane’s outskirts where her artist’s assistant and muse, Dolly the ragdoll cat, rules the roost with a swish of her tail and swipe of her paws.

Courtney’s works have hung in New York and London galleries, graced Zimmermann’s catwalks and likely enlivened the walls of many an English manor thanks to her designs for British wallpaper company Mineheart.

Courtney Brims' 'Back to Nature' wallpaper design for UK company, Mineheart.

She has just shown her work at Talon Gallery in Portland, USA, will be part of a group show, Ritual, at New York’s Haven Gallery (Dec 14-Jan 12), and is illustrating an older-children’s picture book.

“The book is so bizarre and wonderful and it’s been a joy bringing the story to life,” she says. Inspired by natural history and scientific illustrations, fairy tales and fantasy films such as Labyrinth and Willow, Courtney uses coloured pencil to draw works so detailed it’s hard to believe they were created by a human hand.

“My ideas often come to me while I’m daydreaming,” she says.

“When I let my mind wander I’m not trying so hard and there’s no pressure. It’s in those moments where there aren’t any restrictions and I’m able to let loose and have fun with the process of creating.”

Courtney Brims for Zimmermann, 2013.

Many of her works have a gothic twist, revolving around the theme of predator and prey, often with an unsettling element akin to the menace of Mr McGregor lurking by the lettuce patch, ready to make a meal of Peter Rabbit in Beatrix Potter’s classic children’s stories.

“I’ve always had a strong interest in the behaviour of animals, the connection they have with the environment and their relationship with humanity.

“I like to express nature as complex, intelligent and sometimes brutal rather than something that is simply delicate and beautiful that can be tamed and confined,” Courtney says.

Her imagination has given rise to the likes of The Mariner, an alley cat-mermaid hybrid surrounded by fighting goldfish, now showing as a large-scale, digitally printed mural in Edison Lane, city, as part of the Women’s Work outdoor exhibition.

The Mariner, 2017, by Courtney Brims.

And then there are her wallpaper prints featuring rats, birds, snakes and flowers for Mineheart; and Nutmeg, a pretty, pampered pooch illustration displayed in a New York gallery last year for Isle of Dogs, a tribute show to the Wes Anderson film.

“That was one of my all-time favourite shows. The gallery had the actual live-action dog models from the film on display and people were invited to bring their dogs along to the opening,” Courtney says.

Other projects have included a series of ’50s-style pin-up girls for Bavarian Bier Cafe, Brancott Estate wine labels, T-shirt designs for surf and skate label Element, and branding for Abbott’s Village Bakery.

Kowari, by Courtney Brimms

“I enjoy working on the commercial illustrations because they’re often fun and different to anything I usually create,” she says. “It’s nice having that diversity and balance.”

So how did the hockey-playing, former St Margaret’s student come to make a career as an artist-illustrator whose works are now shown the world over?

After finishing school, Courtney did a degree in Built Environment at QUT and worked as an interior designer but didn’t really enjoy it.

“So I decided to stop making excuses and start doing what made me happy and see where it could lead,” she says.

“I decided, ‘I think I’m just going to draw’, and my parents had a minor freak-out because Mum, being a graphic designer, said, ‘I know you’re good at it but I’m not sure how it’s going to work’ – this was also before social media, so there was no real way of connecting with people around the world.”

Sophie by Courtney Brimms

She searched for art competitions to make her name known, and found one run through surf and skate magazine, Monster Children, with a two-week solo show at a gallery in Surry Hills, Sydney, as the prize.

She entered and won, and the show brought her work to the attention of a vast network, including Element.

“I got jobs through there and it just took off,” says the self-taught artist.

“I pinch myself sometimes. If I hadn’t been looking at that point I never would have seen the ad and the rest wouldn’t have happened.”

Now a Sydney agency, The Drawing Arm, secures her commercial work.

She hand-draws all her illustrations, which can take up to three weeks each to complete.

“You can’t rush it. There’s no way of short-cutting it. I just prefer to do it hand-drawn and be in total control of it and I think it’s nice in this day and age that something is still from our hands and not digitalised in any way.”

Artist Courtney Brims does all of her illustrations by hand. Photo: Russell Shakespeare

While her earlier illustrations often featured North American animals such as deer and squirrels, her current artworks revolve around endangered Australian species.

She sees each artwork as an “ideal little paradise” that highlights the beauty of wildlife and the need to conserve it.

“I tend to do a lot of research into the subjects I’m drawing, looking at the specific environment an animal lives in, the types of plants that grow there, the insects that visit those plants and whether there are any threats present.”

After coming up with a concept, she gathers reference material such as photos, and leaves, flowers and even animal bones she finds while out walking in the bush.

“It’s not uncommon for me to go for a walk and come home with pockets full of rocks, dead butterflies, sticks and even dead birds,” she says, as the shoebox collections of bones, butterflies and feathers in her townhouse attest.

“When you think of endangered animals of Australia, you think of the koala, and you don’t think of all these other mammals and birds that people aren’t really aware of. So sadly there’s a lot of choice. I’ve done maybe 10 or so mammals and birds, but there’s still so many I’d love to touch on and draw.”