Artists of Australia
Inspired by the colour and texture of the outdoors -
Inspired by the colour and texture of the outdoors -
Sigrid lives on a hill away from the crowds and has a beautiful little studio on a hill overlooking the valley. It is perfect as she is inspired by nature for her work which has a strong focus on Australian native flora. While her garden is still developing and growing you can see how stunning it will be with the amazing variety of natives she has already planted. I have to say I am getting serious ‘studio envy’ from some of these lovely studios I have been discovering on my visits!! You can really feel how the countryside around Sigrid strongly influence her beautiful works. She is currently working mainly on large canvases using oils as well as enjoying working with thick impasto.. She achieves translucency in glass vessels in her paintings - as well as capturing the delicacy of our Australia flowers alongside their nuts and bark. Sigrid’s current work has a strong focus on the need for our lands, gardens and habitats to engage with the natural environment and the ancient wisdom in caring for the lands and the peoples – many of her works have an underlying message about the disconnect between the old and new knowledges Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Definitely as I paint it all the time! I have a bit of a thing about Callistemon (Bottlebrush) and I think I have planted every colour except yellow. I also have got some of the local Mount Warning orange ones which are quite special. Most of the shopping for natives has been through friends or Mullum native nursery (which has now closed) -or the Burringbar nursery. I have just started to get some seeds and I am going to try my hand at growing them from seed. We have such a large garden that this might be a more cost-effective way of achieving what we want. A beautiful garden around me is paramount and I have had a mass of flowers and leaves this year that I have painted from. I love the leaves with a beautiful scent. I have an Eucalyptus cinerea here I love - and my Banksias are gorgeous. A lot of my current paintings feature our flowers -or some from the neighbourhood. Having the flowers around and to be able to potter around in the garden is amazing. We are planting our garden to keep the view – you can see Byron Lighthouse from here on a clear day. Being so high we can sit on the deck and watch the clouds in the valley – we have planted the gardens to bring in the birds. It was an overgrown cow paddock for many years but now we have little birds – Pardalotes, friendly Magpies and a flock of Black Cockatoos – up to 54 in the flock. My studio is called 'Gyrayir' which means Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo in the local language. The day we moved everything into my studio we had a flock flying around us. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? It depends on the day as I have many. I love the koala sanctuary of the Gum trees that are growing and love that we have created this space. The native trees like Banksias etc that are really coming on now - and then the Kangaroo Paws up near the house are just lovely at the moment. We have been putting lots in for the birds and we also have native bees in a couple of hives in our garden. I love to walk around the garden at the end of each week -and look at how it is growing. I love the bush tucker trees like the Lemon Myrtle and Aniseed Myrtle that tastes like Black cat lollies. What is your favourite plant or flower? I love the Banksia – they are incredibly sculptural and the Hinchinbrook Blue Banksia I am quite obsessed with at the moment. I have planted one just outside of the studio. I think I love the Banksia because every part of the plant - from new flowers through to the old seed pods are amazing. (Pic is view from studio door) Do you have a favourite garden? My mother’s garden is spectacular – her gardens have always been amazing. She loves flowers and you can always pick a bunch from her garden. My mum has moved from Western Sydney to Banora Point and has a little garden, but it is overflowing with plants. She belongs to three garden clubs. My grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with, used to do a lot of gardening with me. I can remember being quite young and drawing and colouring in a trunk of a tree and arguing with her that the trunk shouldn’t be green as I thought it should be brown. She made me start to look at nature around me and realise that not all trunks are brown. There are so many spectacular gardens that I have known. I love the plant selection down at the Habitat shopping area in Byron – the plants are wonderful there. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? I see other artists doing sketches and trying things out, but I like to get a 1m square canvas and just go for it. I think part of it is having an idea and working through it and changing it as needed. I can see the image in my head before I start. I might write down ideas, but I often never get to them! I know what I want to do on the day, and it evolves, and very often it is a story. I am envious of those with neat ideas and palettes - but that is not me. I think I am most passionate when I have the story in my head, and I am weaving it into the painting. My current series is about land management. monoculture and the desecration of sacred sites as well as the new way we have been farming. I don’t think we need to stop but rather to be more mindful and bring the older knowledge into the modern way. It needs to be more respectful of the land and it’s needs. I think I will be working for a while on this theme as it is important to me. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I studied art at High school in Western Sydney but not beyond that. I always wanted to do art – I went to a technical school in Sydney. My best friend and I wanted to do the welding course and we topped it because we wanted to beat the boys! We had to fight to get on that course. But we couldn’t keep going with it after school. I have just started a course now with to get back into doing metal forging and sculpture. My mum for my 18th gave me an easel and paints but I never thought I could live off it. I have always had a set of paints and done lots of workshops – lots of sculpture and jewellery making etc. I always did some form of drawing and painting but its only in the past 6 or 7 years that I knew I wanted to get into it properly. Creativity is always there - if that is how you think - it will affect all you do. Could you talk us through your creative process? It comes together in my mind and then I will go looking for what I am after to put in the painting. I might go to a scrap metal place and look for things. For a recent piece I wanted something colonial and battered and I got it (teapot) from the tip shop. Then I found the rusty barb wire which I already had and decided I would use the Bloodwood Gum flower. Then I decided I wanted a cold cement slab to place them on. After that it was all about working out where I wanted to put the pieces on the canvas. (see pic of piece in gallery below) I will take photos as I will often come back days later to complete - so I do need photos of the flowers of course. I usually work on only one at a time. I like to finish a piece before moving onto another. I think space is a thing for me too as I work on large pieces. I might start the day on quick small pieces, before working on a large piece, just to get me going. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? My partner – she has really helped push me and given me the time and space to achieve my art practice. She is really supportive – even pushed me to have my own studio here. For instance for the Open Studio she put my name up and sent off my work for me – she markets me way better than I could. I sell on Bluethumb as well as Saatchi art and Art Lovers which work well for me What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? I think it is that when you enter competitions you don’t always manage to get in. Then you start to wonder if you're just not good enough. Then there are others like The Other Art Fair that I got into. It is good to sit back and think - am I doing this because it is a story I am connected to and the process of painting? Or is it because I want the recognition and someone else to say it is good enough to be there? That has never been the intention. But selling is fantastic too – a few times people have bought my art and sent me a picture of it on their wall and a lovely letter. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? I think the space I get into – both the studio and having the time to paint is amazing. I love the creative space I can get into here and I love the time I have had this year since working from home. Covid has let me spend more time here and I have been less stressed from all the travel. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? Probably to stick to it and do it more consistently from when I was younger. I feel that now I am on this growth journey that I wish I had started sooner. It would have been great to have been on this journey all the way . Also to save more money for good quality oils! What are your top tips for a great garden? Love! Absolute love and looking at what will grow in the soil where you live. We started off with the trees at the top and a veggie garden and we have put in native herbs. This garden is less than 12 months old, but the plants are loving it. I think it really is the passion for the garden. We do a heap of weeding and we love to wander around on Saturday to look at what we can pick from the garden and cook that night. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? I am part of the Open Studio Trail on weekends of 28/29 November and 5/6 December – website info http://www.os-bbb.com/and the Other Art Fair in March next year. The virtual gallery will run for 6 weeks afterwards. Then weekend after Open Studios is the Design markets in Bangalow.
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Amanda
11/28/2020 02:52:52 pm
I love your artistic vision Sigrid Patterson! All the best for your open studio weekends and the future painting and the growth of your beautiful garden.
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Kay KnightsI am an Australian artist who is crazy about her garden and I'm inspired by the colours and contrasts in my backyard. I truly believe that Gardening is Art - I believe that many Artists are similarly inspired in their gardens. This Blog is for me to go and meet some of them and share their gardens and art. ArchivesNo Archives Categories |