WALLS
I am an abstract oil painter that lives and works in Melbourne. My paintings focus on colour perfection and fun shapes. I graduated high school dux in studio art, and am about to graduate with my Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from RMIT University. I have completed an internship with local artist Laura Fowler and assisted in curating an exhibition put on by her and her students. I am inspired by colours and the desire to make beautiful things. I had a rough time in my early years of high school and found art as a solace. I’ve found that I’ve been compelled to create ever since.
Project Summary
For this project I’ve been focusing on paintings that push myself and doing things I don’t necessarily want to do. In my practice I’ve tended to shy away from the more difficult ideas I’ve had and taken an easier or shorter route to whatever it is I’m doing at the cost of the final work. This project was about unlearning that habit.
Project Outline
My aims are to do the harder things I’ve never wanted to do before, to get more familiar with techniques I have tried before but not to their full potential. And I want to really focus on my aesthetic standard so I can come out the end of my degree with a body of work I’m proud of and happy to look at.
My methods include oils and acrylic paints, I’m using oils on my smaller paintings to really perfect the colours and acrylics on the larger scale for practicality. Through this project I have been uncovering underlying themes of anxiety by exploring visuals of what is seen and what is secondary through my pattern and colour.
I have been asking myself ideas of what is enough? What is good? Why don’t I like my work? Do other people like my work? Am I the least talented person here? And then trying to answer those questions and reassure myself through me work.
I’ve really valued the scale I’ve been able to utilise through this project. I feel its a really vital part in demonstrating how overwhelming and encompassing that anxiety of not being enough is. I want my larger pieces and especially a piece I have planned for the near future to reflect that almost dizzying sensation of being so in your own head, this anxiety is the only thing you can see.
I’ve named to project Walls, both because of the walls I’m painting and the walls on anxiety in my head.
Rationale and Artist Context
In this body of work I’m channeling colours and gradients from colour palettes I’ve been making online for over six years now (https://www.color-hex.com/member/They_never_did). These palettes were a huge comfort to me through school, sort of like an online diary with visual aids. Whenever anything happened it was ‘I’m going to make a palette about this’, and so I feel like these are very intertwined in my life.
I’ve also taken on influence from Toma Abts and Tauba Auerbach. Ive been really intrigued by Abts’ compositions and use of just small pops of colour, the quiet confidence in her shapes and tones has really inspired me. Auerbach, on the other hand, is so creative and talented. I love her use of gradients and the subtle shifts between colours.
This project has been so important to me because I feel like it is what I’ve been leading up to with all my past projects—the accumulation of all my colour palette studies, all my anxieties through my life and of course all through my Bachelor degree.
I have wanted to focus on a larger scale both so the form gives rise to the meaning of the encompassing feeling of anxiety and also to link back to me wanting to push myself to bring my more grand ideas to life, to not shy away from that challenge but rather rise to the occasion and make something super cool.
