Australian Abstract by Amber Creswell Bell
Australian Abstract, by Amber Creswell Bell, celebrates the work of local abstract artists. We look at the work of Miranda Skoczek and Emily Ferretti from the beautiful new book.
Words: Amber Creswell Bell I Photography: Alicia Taylor & Simon Strong
Francesco’s Eyes, 2020 by Miranda Skoczek. Main hero image: Miranda Skoczek in her studio by Simon Strong
“It’s so important to me that with each new gaze, the viewer makes new discoveries.”
Ballad of the Hip, Dead Goddess, 2021 by Miranda Skoczek.
Inner Travel, 2021 by Miranda Skoczek.
Miranda Skoczek
It was an epiphany upon stepping onto the boardwalk of Venice’s Grand Canal from the Stazione di Venezia that led Miranda Skoczek decidedly down the painterly path. At 21, a whole new world was opened up to her. ‘I was completely swept up in the history, art, architecture, rituals around food and ‘‘the good life’’ that Italians do so well. I was on the adventure of a lifetime ... and I was learning and adding to my story, absorbing the fertility of life. I wanted it all.’
Miranda had always loved art and art history at school, and was passionate about self-expression, whether it be in the sartorial realm or in the beautifying of her surrounds. Her whole childhood was spent drawing, collecting ephemera from nature and attempting to capture its beauty by way of pencils and paint. Beautifying her bedroom and creating a wondrous world for herself was a constant pursuit, one afforded to her by her mother with an early introduction to art and culture.
However, come completion of high school, Miranda was instructed to pursue something other than fine arts, and she duly completed a three-year Diploma of Applied Arts and Graphic Design at the Canberra Institute of Technology. ‘But after a year of living like a bon vivant in Europe when I was 21, the enthusiasm for life, and an obsessive devotion to seeking out beauty was cemented,’ she says. ‘I knew sitting in front of a computer and working to someone else’s brief just wouldn’t suffice.’ So, Miranda enrolled in a Diploma of Visual Art (Painting) at the Victoria University of Technology and graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting.
A full-time artist, Miranda absolutely gains from having breaks from painting, for travel and an exploration of and engagement with different cultures, or immersing herself in nature, which she sees as vital to developing her oeuvre. ‘I am constantly striving to push my practice, to reinvent myself, and I am grateful that for the most part, a sense of play, guided by my intuition and a childlike curiosity for the world, has never seen me create pictures that look like those previous,’ she says.
Miranda is a colourist, and a process painter whose pictures are spiritually embedded but without narrative. They are paintings about colour and light, and employ the use of disparate cultural imagery, architectonic forms, music, nature and memory. They are built-up, layered pictures which are immersive, meditative and offer the viewer a place of refuge and contemplation.
Miranda’s palette is her signature – recognised as immensely feminine and serene – and it is the exploration of and sheer delight she finds in colour that drives her practice. ‘My palettes are sensual and emotional responses to all that I consume, and as harmonious as they often are, I love the tension created by unexpected colour combinations,’ she explains. Jewel-like colours, and colours found in nature dominate, and she concedes that primary colours have never been of much interest, feeling that they are not conducive to fostering dreamlike states.
“Once a work is three- quarters done, I get going on another. This keeps things challenging and exciting, and creates a momentum.”
Emily Ferretti
Emily Ferretti considers that there is a subsection of the greater creative community in Australia that is very enthusiastic about abstraction right now. ‘I think realism will always have a more popular place within a mainstream society, but I believe abstraction is making a clear resurgence.’ She considers that this might be linked to design and architecture growing in popularity through the use of social media platforms.
‘There is, however, a more robust painting scene overseas in general, so in that sense I think there will always be a lag in appreciation from a local Australian audience,’ she furthers.
Some of the most powerful and exciting works Emily has seen to date have been of abstract nature, and she deems there to be a profound experience that can happen when an artist distils a colour or composition down to its pure form or material. ‘Abstraction can convey emotions that are raw because it’s stripped down, focusing our attention,’ she explains. ‘This intensity can get lost when figuration and realism or a narrative becomes the focus.’
When it comes to pure abstraction, Emily suggests that without a recognisable subject the majority of people from outside a creative field have a hard time appreciating and grasping the purpose of the work. ‘I think abstraction is much more challenging – and even intimidating – for a mainstream audience,’ she says. ‘Most people consume media such as film, which is completely representational, so I think there is not a language that has built up through culture that is taught to appreciate a diverse set of imagery or shifts in this figurative reality.’
Emily sees there is a common strength among the abstract artists she knows – a highly proficient technical ability in drawing, which underpins their work. ‘As the saying goes, “You have to know how to build it up before you can break it down”,’ muses Emily. ‘There is a very sophisticated dismantling that has to be done to make abstract work and this is what some people do not see when they come to abstraction.’
Emily’s studio is housed within an old furniture factory, which she has inhabited for the last 15 years. The place is dilapidated but spacious, and is infused with gentle, natural light both of which she considers as prerequisites. ‘Natural light in a space is important to me, though since having a family I have been regularly going in to paint at night, so I had to adapt,’ Emily explains. Her practice is full-time, so she is in her studio most days of the week. She paints and draws – using her drawings as the starting point for the works compositionally, later disregarding them as the visual problem solving begins.
Accidental colour shifts are an important part of Emily’s picture-making, and she has been known to use a lot of greens and blues, although recently has been incorporating yellow and certain hotter hues like reds into the mix. ‘I mix my colours very intuitively and am not the sort of painter who is prescriptive on premixed colours. Quite the opposite,’ she attests. ‘I like to start off with a few colours and mix them together to see what I can come up with.’
Growing up on a hobby farm in country Victoria, with plentiful space to tinker around, definitely nourished Emily’s young imagination. She was not a great drawer like some other kids, but enjoyed making things very much and her creativity was always encouraged by her family. As a kid who excelled in sport, Emily had at one time thought that would be her professional calling – however, it was a visit to a professional artist’s studio in the middle of her high school years that reset her course. ‘I was totally excited by the idea of a space to produce work. It was most certainly seeing a working studio and what it could represent for me that was the turning point early on,’ she recalls. What Emily is most proud of now is the dedication that she brings to her own studio practice.
