School Of Fine Art

Listen, I still feel fear every time I start a new painting, but I’ve learned to trust the creative process. Knowledge really isn’t everything, no matter how much you think you know or don’t know, it will take something else. It takes a combination of guts and willingness and a sense of curiosity and fun that will allow yourself to make plenty of mistakes and failures.

Aside from the tips and techniques, I talk about the inner struggles and that can inhibit our art. Join me for a worthwhile journey

Paul has developed a sustained, articulate vision of the natural world over the last 40 years. He takes the phenomena of sky, fire, wood, rock and water, and distills them to a common essence. Like a fugue in music or rhyme and rhythm in poetry, all nature is themed, unified by fundamental forces.
These forces are physically organising, determining the structure of the natural forms. Just as objects are attracted to each other due to gravity, the landscape has grown and evolved under constant and universal physical influences.

Since 1994, Seraphina has been developing non toxic technology, called Solar Plate etching, in her own art practice. In 2005 she was invited as artist in residence and mentor to students at the Canberra School of Art, Canberra.

Seraphina has been invited to teach Solar Plate workshops at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery, Gymea as well as Bathurst Regional Gallery, Bathurst. She regularly teaches printmaking at the Megalo Print workshop in Canberra and for the summer schools at Camp Creative in Bellingen and Sturt in Mittagong. She was invited to train 8 artists from the Spiral Gallery in Bega NSW. This was funded by a Regional Arts Grant for the Megalo Print Workshop and the Bega Regional Gallery.

Seraphina has always maintained a strong link to the community, teaching printmaking to artists with disability at the Addison road Centre, Marrickville. Most recently she has returned from India where she was on an Artist Residency at the College of Art and Craft in Kolkata and the Kola Bhavan University of Shantiniketan, in West Bengal.

Seraphina has had many solo and group exhibitions and her work is represented in galleries in Australia.

When I was about 7 or so, I saw a photo of Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows in an old art book. The painting moved me so much, that in many ways, the moment was imprinted and changed something in me that defined a path for me. Since my Vincent Van Gogh fever has passed, so many artists have inspired, moved and taken me back to that moment in my childhood that motivated me to keep painting.

Where do you currently find inspiration?

Over the last couple of years or so, the late Robert Juniper’s art has inspired me greatly and taught me in many different ways how to tell a story in landscape.

Do you have a theme or favourite subject that you are exploring in your art practice right now?

The compositions of many great artists at the moment, especially Degas and Margret Woodward, their ways of grouping figures/shapes and colours to make an interesting composition as well as John Wolseley and Julie Mehretu’s kind of floating composition to depict the nature and urban environment with various mediums on different surfaces.

What have you been working on lately?

Colours and textures from the nature always fascinate me. My recent focus in art making has been building up surfaces with part random, part studied textures and exploring these layers with the visual elements observed, creating a vestige of a landscape

I enjoy the process of slowing down, paying attention to the detail and beauty of the objects. Taking the time to really observe creates a greater connection. I aim to approach my subjects with sensitivity and respect, evoking quiet calmness amongst the fast paced everyday.

I have always loved to draw and paint and whilst holding on to the passion for art, and after studying a degree and pursuing a career in business and having a family, I have managed to find the balance to pursue my preferred creative path.

My work has always been inspired by the ever changing moods of nature and what sense it evokes in us. Nature can create a foreboding emotive response, that illuminates memories and feelings that are familiar or arouse a sense of knowing.

I have a fascination with the sea, its dangers and the ever changing qualities of its nature.

“The sea is the favourite symbol of the unconscious” –  Carl Jung

What inspires you to paint?

Art and life are deeply interwoven, not only in my life, but I believe in society at large. My earliest memories of art are sitting in my father’s studio and watching him mix paint. I was completely mesmerized by the rhythm of the pounding and turning of the squishy substance and watching it magically transform from one colour to another. I am still excited by this transformation.

What are you working on now?

Currently I am renovating my kitchen and bathroom and I am so surprised at how creative a process it is. It’s like creating a giant artwork that you can live and cook and bathe in. It conforms to all the processes of art making and feels enormously satisfying to me.

I am looking forward to getting back into the studio though, and starting some new work.