Sonia van de Haar is an artist and colour designer with 20 years’ experience working in the built environment. With a background in painting and architecture, and a passion for connecting people and place, Sonia works to bring intelligent and stimulating colour and artworks into the spaces where people live, work and thrive. She speaks and teaches on architectural colour design. Sonia was born in Wollongong and studied painting at the School of Art and Design, ANU, and architecture at the University of NSW. She has studied fresco painting at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.

"I came to architecture through painting, and after studying fresco painting in India. During my early years as a graduate architect I became aware of a lack of colour knowledge in the discipline of Architecture. In my design practice, Lymesmith, I work to develop meaning and resonance between site and structure, and people and their environments through my understanding of colour as a material in the built environment. This approach applies at both the scale of the city, and at the scale of the private house.

Each Lymesmith project has developed in response to its particular conditions and context. I have no absolute manifesto with regards to architectural polychromy. I aim to understand the architecture and the site, and with a painters eye, bring them into a harmony that exceeds the sum of parts."

Barbara’s degree in the visual arts led to a career across a diverse range of private and public visual art and cultural organisations over the past 25 years. Barbara enjoys the challenge of bringing art projects to life, working closely with artists and creators to realise their vision. Appreciating that the arts is a catalyst to understand all aspects of our lives such as our community, environment, heritage and identity is a rewarding life. Barbara supports the creative outputs of Lymesmith through administration expertise and organisational focus enabling Sonia to do more of the good stuff.

Barbara was born in Canberra and studied printmaking at the School of Art & Design, ANU. Her administration skills were honed at Studio One Print Workshop, Beaver Galleries, the Australian War Memorial, as Director of Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre and School Manager at the ANU School of Art & Design.