I was born in Sydney but spent my childhood in a small, sleepy beach town on the South Coast. I was always drawing from a very early age and it's a habit I've never been able to kick. I always enjoyed wandering through the bushland in my home town and often found the avenue of imagination an adventure which I would transcribe to paper with drawings of strange monsters, people and places. Both of my parents were teachers, mum at my own public school - she is a fantastic artist and her creativity really influenced me in my youth when it came to pursuing the creative arts. I had a defining moment in primary school that told me art was for me. Being a runner-up in the centenary of federation coin design competition in 2000 was the first time I felt I could achieve something more than just entertaining myself with art.

Growing up, most of my peers didn't show much regard or support for art. I was influenced by my teachers to pursue my passion for illustration, painting and art. I think it was those teachers and my parents who inspired me to become an art teacher and to pursue creation as a vocation; I can't imagine doing anything that wasn't related to art. It was somewhere in my time at high school, too, that I ended up in a schoolyard tussle that lead to me being known as "Moose" - a name I hated at the time, but which has come to be a part of my identity.

In university I studied graphic design. I took on as many visual arts subjects I could, and I decided I wanted to be an art teacher. Learning how to be an educator was deeply gratifying and my passion for art is only rivalled by my passion to spread the knowledge, skills and techniques to making art. My first show was called DropShadow, and was made up of a group of other UOW creative arts students. Since then I've done several shows and events, including Beauty in the Obscure, which investigated the many qualities and perceptions of beauty. This was actually completed alongside my partner Georgina Wells - an accomplished artist and curator - and was one of the most successful and enjoyable shows I've taken part in. At last year's RAW event at Hotel Illawarra, I really got to put my abilities to the test drawing caricatures for people as they watched. This driving motivation to make art for a purpose has aided me in keeping creative juices flowing; being able to design invitations for friends' or families' weddings/birthdays and being able to make gifts for people from scratch has proven to be a very satisfying aspect of my art practice.

One of the most important aspects of my work is storytelling. I feel the sharing, telling and creating of stories is a benchmark in humanity's development of culture and history. People who are willing to tell their story can find an audience and a great sense of achievement and connection through sharing theirs. The storytelling in my work relates to my Indigenous heritage which I discovered through family, during my time at university. Since then I've really found an appreciation for the stories in my families' histories and the landscape of the nation. I find it an enriching and spiritual act to connect to the environment and to share stories with the world through art.

I'm currently working on a comic book I plan to release at SupaNova, a comic convention in Sydney, the comic is called Ice Cream Man, and is meant to be a ridiculous and enjoyable story of a man trying to sell ice cream in the post-apocalyptic wasteland; only to find he may be one of the very last humans left. I'm hoping people enjoy my work as much as I do making it, and whatever success comes from my work I hope to pay back in some way to the local art community. I hope my future is full of a lot of art to come, I look forward to facing the adventures and having a richer, fuller story to tell before my time is up.

Information: instagram.com/mooselloyd