Phoebe Paradise with A Brisbane Story, projected on the Sydney Opera House. An image of Phoebe's childhood home from the Frank and Eunice Corley Collection was part of her inspiration for the animation. Photo by Murdoch Stafford.
Welcome to Made from memory, a series exploring how Queensland creatives use State Library collections to inspire their practice.
Frank Corley snapped Queensland suburbia from a Cadillac window while his wife, Eunice, developed and printed the photographs in a travelling darkroom squeezed into the back of a delivery van.
State Library of Queensland’s Corley Explorer is a digital archive of their work, preserving over 61,000 black and white photographs of houses from the 1960s and 70s.
The Corley collection was a revelation for artist Phoebe Paradise, and continues to inspire her fantastical, colour-drenched illustrations of her Brisbane hometown.
‘What I really love about this collection is the story: the idea of door-to-door hawkers in a pink Cadillac, peddling photos on the street, accidentally creating the largest, most beautiful body of work documenting the history of Queensland’s suburban architecture. It’s evocative stuff,’ she says.
Phoebe has extensively used the Corley collection to teach workshops at high schools, libraries and galleries around Queensland. It even helped shape a large-scale animation that showcased her work on an international stage.
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Phoebe at work in her studio. Photo by James Caswell.
A Brisbane Story on the Sydney Opera House
Apple commissioned Phoebe to develop a new work for the iconic Sydney Opera House sails in early 2026, with the brief of telling a personal story about life in Australia.
‘This was the biggest moment of my career, and I still can’t quite believe it happened at all,’ she says. ‘I wanted to tell a very specific kind of story about living in the suburbs in Brisbane, sitting on the verandah and being joined by the wildlife. My mind, of course, went straight to the Corley collection.
‘I searched for a childhood home, an old workers cottage that had gone through a million renovations since its first iteration, but there it was.
‘I used this photo as a reference to sketch the design, and over the course of a month or so it was refined and developed into the animation. It felt really lovely being able to share a super local, super personal experience on a national stage like that.’
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Photographer Frank Corley with his camera in the 1990s, Doug Spowart, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. Record no 99184520983802061.
'The most incredible resource’
Of the estimated 250,000 photos the Corleys took, around two-thirds were sold to homeowners as postcards and calendars. The unsold images, donated to State Library in 1995 just before Frank died, are a time capsule of Queensland life.
Phoebe was introduced to the Frank and Eunice Corley Collection in 2023, when she was commissioned to paint a mural in a Hervey Bay gallery foyer.
‘The wonderful team at Hervey Bay Regional Gallery showed me Corley Explorer and I couldn’t believe what a blind spot this was for me,’ she says.
‘It is the most incredible resource, and I ended up using a combination of Corley photos and my own for the creation of that mural, which is still there today.’
The Hunters, the Hervey Bay Regional Art Gallery mural that kicked off Phoebe’s creative relationship with Corley Explorer. Photo by Natasha Harth.
How artists are using the Corley collection
The Corleys’ entrepreneurial spirit resonated with the South Brisbane-based artist, illustrator and creative director: ‘As something of a hawker myself, I also see them as a quite poetic example of how a commercial practice can coexist beautifully within contemporary art spaces.’
Nostalgia meets science fiction in Phoebe’s vivid illustrations, murals and public artworks, which express ‘the feeling of growing up in a uniquely beautiful, strange subtropical corner of the world’.
She chases inspiration in Brisbane’s suburban architecture and environment, finding beauty in the everyday.
‘I have been using photo reference for my paintings and illustrations for years, but mostly from my own collection. Stalking neighbourhoods in the Brisbane suburbs, photographing houses and apartments on my iPhone, has occasionally got me into trouble when it looks like I’m trying to case the neighbourhood,’ she says with a laugh.
Captured in an analogue world, the Corley photographs are inspiring a generation of digital-era creatives through Phoebe’s workshops.
Phoebe uses Corley images to teach students about photo bashing, mural concept design, digital art and illustration. Photo bashing is a technique she uses in her own work, building a digital collage of photos or 3D models that help ‘construct’ the architectural designs for some of her illustrations.
‘The Corley Explorer photos are clear, high resolution and have a consistent visual style, which makes them perfect for collage. But beyond this, we are really trying to get to the bottom of how young artists see the home as a motif: What does the home mean to you? How do you represent it in your work? Are the suburbs a place of familiarity and comfort or something sinister and alien?
‘The work that comes out of these classes is astonishing and it makes me so happy to see the Corley collection living on in these students’ early career work. Thrilling really!’
Brisbane artist Phoebe Paradise at the artist studio and gallery collective she founded in South Brisbane. Photo by James Caswell.
Community and homegrown creativity
State Library’s collection tells the story of Queensland. It’s fitting that 6 of Phoebe’s distinctively Queensland limited-edition art prints are part of the documentary record of the state’s social and cultural history: Agents of Chaos, After Us, Jacaranda Season, Brutalist Architecture Appreciation Society, Stranglehold and Swamp City.
Phoebe is director and founder of Merivale Studios, an artist studio and gallery in the heart of the Fish Lane Arts Precinct: ‘It’s an amazing space populated by close to 20 fabulous local artists, animators, designers, photographers and creatives from all backgrounds. It’s an incredibly fulfilling role and I love to support the emerging Brisbane arts community in whatever way we can.’
‘I have a commercial arts practice, which means I’m often commissioned for illustrations, installations and collaborations with commercial brands or institutions like museums or libraries.
‘Some of my favourite work to do is designing and painting murals. I’ve just recently completed a mural for Caxton St Brewing Co, which was an absolute blast. It was to launch a beer we collaborated on together called Paradise on Tap. It’s a weird job!
‘Beyond the commercial practice, I also try to find time for my personal work – admittedly not as much as I would like. My iPad is filled with unfinished sketches and scribbles that will eventually make up a solo exhibition next year, but I really need a deadline in order to make this work happen. A curse!’
'He was Mr Google before Google Maps and Google Earth.'
Doug Spowart talks about Frank and Eunice Corley and saving their collection for Queenslanders.
(2018 digital story)
Is your house in the Frank and Eunice Corley Collection?
Tag and describe photos, collect your favourites, and share your stories and images. The collection includes the Brisbane, Ipswich, Redcliffe, Toowoomba, Stanthorpe, Bundaberg, Maryborough, Gympie, Hervey Bay, Kingaroy, Nambour, Caboolture and Landsborough areas.
It's free to join State Library. Search the catalogue, explore the art and design collections or experiment at State Library’s make and design hub, The Edge
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