Description / Inspiration

The 2019/20 bushfires that ravaged the east coast of Australia resulted in a huge loss of life, property, animals and their habitat.
Frankie Firefighter is a tribute to all the fire services that worked tirelessly to save what they could. Frankie’s uniform and insignia is generic and intended to represent a number of fire services rather than single out any one agency.
The flora and fauna depicted on the back of Frankie’s fire-fighting jacket suffered greatly during the fires. However fire, regeneration and re-growth in the Australian bush is as old as time and hopefully our animals and bush will return to sustainable levels.
Kim and Wayne created the design for Frankie Firefighter and Kim painted the sculpture.
Wayne made the helmet by hand. He was a Fire Rescue NSW firefighter for 36 years and as with the uniform, the aim was for a helmet recognizable as a fire fighting helmet, but not one belonging to any particular service.
The artists aimed to show their sincere gratitude to all the firies that risk their lives on a daily basis to help the needs of others.

Artist Biography

Kim Staples is an Australian visual artist, art tutor and art therapist who lives and works in Port Macquarie.

In 2004, she founded Art of Life. Kim is committed to providing an art educational service to the community. Kim’s art courses reflect the needs of local individuals including youth groups and people living with alzheimer’s, disabilities and other challenging conditions. Kim’s mission is to support people to achieve, improve and develop healthy emotions through the arts.

She feels artistic expression is the key to one’s soul. Kim tries to reflect this in her artwork by connecting her inner world with her outer world. Her love of culture, nature, colour, texture and the unknown is captured in her diverse style of painting and sculpting.