Bridget Steer - When Lockdown Gives You Lemons (2020)

31.4cm x 39cm

Acrylic and house paint on canvas, framed in raw oak

“When Lockdown Gives You Lemons (2020)”

This collection of memories from living in Melbourne in 2020 is all about the year not going as expected (one might even say it was “unprecedented”). The year that started with a new favourite gin garnished with limes from the tree in the backyard ended with our youngest kid being born on the last day of a lockdown and the “lime” tree producing the biggest lemons you’ve ever seen. 

Bridget Steer

Bridget Steer is an emerging artist and women’s health GP living in Toowoomba (land of the Giabal, Jarowair and Jagera people). Bridget’s artworks are narrative works, using specific composition choices and often children’s toys to convey how ordinary, small moments can capture common human experiences.

Working in mostly acrylics and house paints initially acted as a practical strategy to overcome the mental barriers that can come with using “precious” materials - preventing starting, experimenting or the fear of not achieving a perfect result. However it has also become a philosophical choice to elevate the building blocks of the work, to parallel the way women’s crafts have not previously been accepted as art as they haven’t conformed to the traditional materials used by Western artists.

In 2025 Bridget was a finalist in the Art to Art Unearthed Art Prize and the Corner Store Gallery’s Inside This Box Art Prize. Bridget’s work is featured in the 2025 Australian Artist Collective x Dangerous Females Collaboration to fundraise for domestic violence charities. Bridget has been invited to exhibit at the 2026 Grammar Art Show at Toowoomba Grammar School.

A percentage of profits from each artwork sale is donated to charity.