Milli Windshuttle speaks about art as something lived, not performed. Painting becomes a way of staying awake inside the world—an act of participation rather than observation. The work is shaped by sensitivity, by the need to alchemise pain into something softer, and by a refusal to let darkness become the only language. Optimism is not treated as naïveté, but as discipline: a conscious choice made again and again. In a culture flooded with fast imagery and manufactured meaning, Milli Windshuttle leans into slowness, intention, and the handmade mark. This interview moves through questions of authenticity, self-belief, critique, spirituality, and the complicated space between private purpose and public exchange, revealing a practice built on hope, intuition, and endurance.

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What do you think is the most meaningful role an artist plays in society today?

For me, artists are lighthouses. When we’re alone and lost in the dark, art is something to move towards. There’s always a piece of art somewhere waiting for you. For every feeling you can find a book, an album, a painting that’s ready to have the conversation with you, and if you can’t find it, you can make it. An artist’s role is to create whatever needs to be created for them, put it out there and then let people find it when they need it. When things aren’t making sense, there’s an artist somewhere who has tried to make sense of it. Making art means you aren’t just letting life happen to you, you’re an active participant. You’re transforming a little piece of the world and in doing so, you’re changing it in your own small way.

I believe we’re all given gifts, talents and traits that deserve to be honed, in service of one another. I tried for a long time to fit myself into different spaces, attempting to be of service in ways that didn’t suit me. I think a gift I’ve been given is an ability to alchemise pain. I’ve experienced a lot of setbacks, loss, neglect and loneliness, and I’ve always processed it externally. I’m not someone who can repress anything, and society rewards repression. It keeps people working and the wheels of capitalism turning. Expressing ourselves gives others permission to do the same.

Some artists are brilliant mirrors of the world’s injustices. They magnify the pain. I love that for them, and it speaks to a lot of people that want their pain validated. However my art is directed towards sensitive people, who know all of the pain intimately, but need to choose hope to stay afloat. It’s kind of like the encouragement thing I spoke of. Some people thrive off brutal honesty, but some just want to feel safe and loved. It’s my responsibility to share the gift I’ve been given, which is choosing optimism in spite of it all.

In a world flooded with imagery, what responsibility do artists have to stand out and say something authentic?

I think it’s a statement in itself to choose a slow process because of how rushed everything is. All of the advertising, propaganda and AI we’re exposed to is just like fast fashion. It’s a pile of cheaply made shit washed up on the digital shore. It wastes resources and ultimately just exploits people and makes someone else rich. It’s consumed for ten seconds and then never thought about again, while someone else deals with the consequences. 

The other day at a second hand store I found an amazing quilt. It was clearly a handmade gift for a kid, there was fabric with pirate ships printed on it and sewn on skull and bones. It was so beautiful and made with intention, you could feel the love and purpose and time put into it. I think that painting, and any art that comes directly from a person’s mind and is then shaped with their hands, is something to be appreciated. At least more than imagery that’s coming directly from a corporation, with the intention of manipulating or persuading the viewer. If we’re in a flood of imagery, art is the droplets rolling down the window. 

When it comes to what the picture is literally saying, sometimes I feel a pressure to save the world with a single painting. I get pulled in different directions because I feel a responsibility to speak to the injustices of the world. A part of me thinks “you need to comment on this and this and this, and if you don’t then you aren’t really reflecting the moment like a good artist should”. This thought process can debilitate me from being able to make anything. If you’re following your impulses, the work often organically ends up saying something meaningful. Not every time, but sometimes.

Is art created for the artist, the audience, or somewhere in between?

It’s cyclical. My art practice offers me purpose. A reason to stay healthy, a reason to care about my life. After all of that purpose is poured out and then hung on a wall, suddenly the whole meaning shifts. The attention I give to my work every day is turned onto me and my paintings. 

Having a show is funny because it’s like you enter an enclosure full of compliments. I know some artists find this uncomfortable or trivial, but I get a lot of energy from positive feedback. I hear artists talk about loving brutal criticism of their work. They say that positive feedback is just fluff, they only want harsh truths, that’s what will make them a better painter. I appreciate constructive criticism when I ask for it, but most of the time I just want to be told I’ve done a good job. It could be a generational thing, but the brutality thing feels like a patriarchal way of looking at growth. I know when something of mine is shit, and I know when I like it. I don’t need someone to tell me. I don’t make art solely for accolades, but encouragement helps me push on.

When I’ve wrangled and wrestled with the work for months, often to the point where I don’t like anything I’ve painted, an audience helps me see it through fresh eyes. When a viewer enjoys the product of so much hard work and internal excavation, that’s cool. It’s still serving me, but there’s a mutually beneficial exchange going on. When I’m an audience member of someone else's art that I love, I know I get something out of it. We all deserve to be inspired. 

How has your artistic style transformed over the years? Are there specific influences, experiments, or moments that marked a turning point?

When I was younger there was a heaviness to everything I made. I had a lot of sadness and it felt natural to purge it with art. I used to write poetry, and one day while I was writing I realised that I couldn’t find any new words for misery. It was getting so boring and repetitive. I made a conscious decision then to solely make art that reflected how I wanted to feel, not how I necessarily felt. It was an epiphany, the more I made scary drawings, the more scary imagery I had around me. It was how I realised that what we put out is what we call back into our lives. Instead of “you are what you eat” it was “ I am what I make”. And I just wanted to be happy. Since then the energy of my work has been optimistic. Sometimes I might let a little sadness or anger live in a painting, because I want to honour those feelings, but I’ll never make a whole body of work focusing on them. I’m more interested in what comes after heartache.

Art school was another turning point, and where the biggest technical changes took place. The opportunity to really focus and get feedback massively developed the technical aspect of my work. I had an amazing teacher that showed me how to stretch canvases and encouraged me to go bigger. I learnt to lean into the modality of painting and my eye matured. I threw myself into the experience and developed quite quickly, I was so hyperfixated on getting better. I’m still like that.

Do you believe the ‘mad artist’ stereotype still holds weight, or is creativity more grounded than we think?

It feels like the world has less patience for time wasters these days. Since we’re all a lot more aware of mental illness it’s kind of stripped that mythology away, which is probably for the best. It’s not as easy to romanticise when people can just diagnose you on the spot. You’re not a “lost soul” anymore, you just have CPTSD. The artists I know around me are very hard workers, along with being a little bit crazy. There are certain artists that are afforded the luxury of leaning into being mad, because they have safety nets that others don’t. But madness feels like a brand now, which isn’t really authentic.

I have plenty of mental health issues and it’s a full time job making sure that “madness” doesn’t affect me for the worse. I certainly don’t glorify mental illness, because it slows me down a lot when it comes to my career. Though I am also grateful for it, because aspects of it help me creatively. My access to imagination is what makes my work interesting and I think this coupled with focus and consistency is what makes a great artist.

Under what circumstances do you think art risks becoming pretentious?

Artists are given the job of seeing and feeling everything with such intensity, and making sense of it with art. Then the art world feels like a whole lot of people that enjoy theorising everything, to bypass feeling anything. Though because I didn’t grow up in the arts, I probably project a lot onto this invisible “art world”. 

There’s so much inconsistency, political art made about revolution sitting in institutions that are funded by corrupt organisations. The constant paradox is where I see the most pretentiousness. I’m sure I have an unrefined palette, but art that takes no effort annoys me. I like some conceptual art but unless it’s really clever it feels lazy to me. That’s the working class in me. I see some artists making money off invisible ideas and it just reeks of privilege. 

I find the gallery space incredibly suffocating. I’ve never felt like I could be myself in a gallery, and I know some people experience it like a church, a place of reverence, but I don’t really enjoy art in that context. Which is weird because the gallery space is where my work often exists. There’s something about everything being so clean and quiet, it’s another paradox to the art making process. 

What are your long-term aspirations as an artist, both personally and professionally?

I want the freedom to expand, experience new things and continue evolving stylistically. I’m ready to move beyond struggle and into a consistently creative life. I aspire for a lifestyle that allows me to dilly dally and maintain a curious mindset. I want to keep developing innovative work and find new ways to build images. I want my paintings to get lots of eyes on them so they can find the people that love it. I want to do residencies and paint in studios surrounded by nature, in places I’ve never been. Right now I’m seeking gallery representation. I want to make album covers for musicians I love. I’d love to have a huge studio to keep making big work, something with lots of light and wall space. I want to be in shows all over the world, and meet more artists to collaborate and exhibit with. I want to make sculptures and textiles and murals, anything and anywhere my work can go, I want it. A few years ago the life I’m living now was my dream, and I’m grateful for where I’m at. I’m not in a rush anymore, because I know if I stay committed to my practice, the rest will follow. And if for some reason it doesn’t, then at least I can live with no regrets. 

Artificial Intelligence is increasingly infiltrating creative fields. Do you see artificial intelligence as a threat, a tool, or a collaborator in the art world?

There’s not a lot of things I’m super concrete on, I hold space for a lot of different points of view. One of the things I can firmly say I’ll never change my mind about is how much AI sucks. There is not one tiny piece of me that wants it in any area of my life. I don’t see it as a threat, because I already chose to be a painter, with no money or connections, in a terrible economy. I have plenty of obstacles, so what’s one more? Art is human and if someone wants an artwork from AI then that’s their cross to bear, and I’m embarrassed for them. 

Does spirituality or a connection to something larger than yourself influence your creative process?

100%. When I was a kid I said to my mum that I wanted a dog, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle the responsibility. I said aloud that I wished I could try it out without making the full commitment. A week or two later her friend asked us if we could take care of her dog for a year while she went overseas, and if we got really attached, we could keep her. Things have always worked out for me like that. My paintings can come to fruition in crazy ways, which is another reason why I don’t include heavy imagery or things I don’t want to attract. I’ve seen what I’ve painted play out in the months following, and I’m not sure if I’m bringing it into my life or if I’m predicting what’s about to happen, but it can be spooky sometimes! 

When I’m lost on how to fix a painting I will choose an album and let the sound and my hand make decisions, which often makes for the most interesting pieces. It’s like divine intervention, when I have to leave myself behind and trust in something outside of myself to fix it. My work is a constant conversation with considered artistic choices and whatever invisible forces decide that want to come through via intuition.

My practice also echoes life back to me. In life you face challenges and make mistakes, just like in the studio. After enough time you learn to trust that everything works out ok in the end, and if it doesn’t, you can just throw it out and start again. Painting reminds me that good things take time. It’s a constant practice of faith because living life as an artist is a daily leap of faith. 

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Across this conversation, Milli Windshuttle returns to art as a guiding light—something made for those moments when life feels heavy, confusing, or impossible to hold alone. The practice rejects pretension and performance, choosing sincerity, craft, and emotional clarity over theory or spectacle. Encouragement is treated as fuel, tenderness as responsibility, and imagination as both gift and burden. Even doubt and mental struggle are met with work, focus, and faith in process. In the end, the vision is simple and powerful: art as shelter, art as love, art as proof that meaning can still be built slowly, by hand, against the noise.