Artist: Lilli Kimber – Colour me happy

Colour me happy

Story by Zoë Kassiotis

Page left: Wheatbin Salute. Above: Twilight on Justs Farm.

Page left: Wine & Cheese. Above: Margo’s paradise.

The winter sky is a clear blue canvas on the July morning I meet artist and maker Lilli Kimber at Goodness Coffee Co in Aldinga. She’s tucked herself away with a coffee in one hand as she works on her latest creation with the other, warmed by the winter sun through the window. The young artist emits a glow that tells me she’s in her happy place.

Amaro – meaning ‘bitter’ in Italian – is the liquor used in a negroni. It’s also Lilli’s favourite drink and the inspiration behind the name of her two-year-old multi-faceted creative endeavour, Amaro Tones. Lilli’s eye for beauty extends to anything with a charmingly aged quality; just as much of Amaro Tones is lovingly-restored retro furniture as it is juicy prints. ‘I associate amaros with orange and warm tones and my pieces are quite Mediterranean-inspired so it made sense,’ Lilli says.

Lilli’s artistry was nurtured during her Willunga Waldorf primary schooling years, both at school and via private lessons with artist Lesley Redgate. Lilli fondly recalls memories of walking across paddocks from her Willunga childhood home to Lesley’s old house >

Above left: Taco Bar. Above right: Lilli at home in Aldinga.

for after-school lessons. ‘She showed me colour and how light works and I’m still really glad my mum organised that for me,’ Lilli reflects.

I’m blown away by the intricate detail in Lilli’s work – which she shares on her Instagram account @amarotones – her digital brushstrokes opening a window to elsewhere. In her latest garden piece, tiny mangoes hang like ornaments, each one rendered with its own individual detail, a series of tiny still lifes within the bigger scene.

The same reverence for detail can be seen in pieces of restored furniture that Lilli works on. She spends much of her time trawling the internet and her local leafy backstreets looking for pieces – usually cane or mid-century – that capture her eye and speak to her heart. ‘I always wonder how many times it’s been sold before, how many homes it’s been in and the stories it’s collected over time,’ she says.

A desire to be more environmentally aware led Lilli to teach herself how to fix cane furniture. Transforming aged rattan into sought-after boho pieces is a laborious task – one that Lilli believes is well worth her time. ‘If I see something on the street I’ll pick it up and make it beautiful again – that’s just the way I live – to make this a better place for my kids,’ she says.

A lack of space in the upstairs apartment of her mum’s Aldinga Beach shack – where she lives with her partner Rodrigo and their two children – as well as the realities of life with spirited young’uns prevents Lilli from keeping her revived furniture. ‘Some things are just too nice and I know they’ll trash them,’ she giggles. This is also why Lilli currently uses Procreate to paint on her iPad. ‘It’s exactly the same as on paper, but a little cheating with layers, erasing and no mess,’ she explains.

Art has been there for Lilli in the trying times of pregnancy and early motherhood. Her relationship with creating is deeply personal and has become an integral part of how she rides the fluctuating waves of mental health. ‘I’m not very headstrong, but I feel like this is how I make a statement and is just my way of coping with mental health struggles and making myself happy,’ she says.

As Lilli prepares to enter her thirties, she says the dream is to open her own Fleurieu market stall and use paper and paints to create from a studio with French doors unfurling onto an ocean vista. However, her immediate time-poor-mum-of-two-bubs plan is to build a hothouse studio space on her deck; having a space to create is all that matters. Lilli’s philosophy is that all humans are meant to make some kind of creative statement. ‘I feel like we lack colour as a society and that we need to go back to embracing individuality.’

Lifting my eyes again to today’s azure sky, I reflect on how much lighter everyone appears looking up in awe of that glittering blue expanse. Perhaps Lilli is onto something here. In an age of neutral tones and minimalism, maybe we need to come back to colour. ‘It’s like people are almost afraid of it,’ she says. ‘I just want to start painting colour back into life’.