PAINTING THOSE I KNOW AND LOVE explores transformation, intimacy, and identity through painting. Drawing on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the work reflects on how relationships and selfhood continually evolve.
After moving from Sunshine Coast to Melbourne, I have grown comfortable in my queer identity through my community of friends that surround me – many of whom are depicted in these paintings. Moments with these friends – camping, drinking, crafting – are relived and reinterpreted through digital collage and painting with vivid colour, layered transparency, and brushwork.
In this work, faces in yellow mirror the crinkled fabric that surrounds each figure. A stream of blue threads its way through the compositions, linking us together before it ends with me, painted in pink. Each person represented has shared traces of blue symbolising the ways we have shaped and supported each other. In the final piece of the triptych, the blue remaining on my body signifies the way that I was influenced by the people surrounding me. “Painting Those I Know and Love” displays the positive effects of having a supportive community, and how this can directly culture one’s own self expression and identity. Representing this self expression, is a vivid shade of pink that contrasts from the thematic blue and yellow shades used throughout the triptych.
Zoe Kamarinos is a Greek Australian artist who draws inspiration from classical and contemporary narratives. Her work reflects a deep interest in how relationships shape selfhood and how queer experiences of connection and belonging can be represented through paint.
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