McDonald, whose trademark fantasy style of painting has been exhibited in Melbourne, New York and Trentham, painted seven of the town’s women to demonstrate how many strong females live in the community.

“I wanted to paint all the women of Trentham as they are all amazing people but that task would have been immense,” she said.

“I painted the seven women I chose – Freya McLaren, Liz Carmody, Rose Wilson, Katherine McDonald, Debbie McKnight, Cynthia Goudie and Katrina Douglas – as an example of the diverse female talents who live in our community. Artists, mothers, film makers – they are an example of the unity of women and of an ability to work together using their different talents to do great things for Trentham”.

McDonald also painted 20 moonlight landscapes of Trentham and surrounding areas that will be exhibited alongside the portraits, which also include the moon, for its mythical links to femininity.

Lune is McDonald’s last major body of work before she travels to the USA in 2019 to study after presidential portrait painted Mark Carder.

She hopes to hone her skills so she can undertake further local portraiture.

“I’m hoping to do more portraits of local women in the near future as there are so many amazing women in our town,” she said.

Lune will be launched at 6pm on January 4 at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. It can be viewed for the entirety of January.