Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Back to Basics program / JULY 2022
Zoe Grey
Tasmania, Australia
www.zoe-grey.com
About
I am an emerging artist who grew up in Marrawah, a remote
coastal town on the western edge of Tasmania, a small island
off the south of Australia. Marrawah is exposed, with unique
wild weather and a raw, rugged landscape. I grew up there
and developed a love for the natural environment around me.
My intimate lived experience of that landscape informs my
work. I seek to investigate how the practice of painting can
hold, nurture and unpack our relationships to place.
My process explores raw authentic mark making and
responds to the tactile, intimate quality of paint. I work with
memory and familiarity to guid figurative representations,
and I engage distance as a tool of abstraction. I strive to
investigate the complex character of landscape and question
the way we view and re-present the land around us.
I graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2018 and
have since exhibited nationally, with work held in private
collections internationally. I am currently based in nipaluna/
Hobart, Australia, pursuing my practice at the Artist Run
Initiative Good Grief Studios.
Stillness + play
I came to Arteles with an intention to be open, a determination
to ‘see what happens’. Pretty quickly, I felt a great sense of
space and freedom. I felt deeply creative, with no bounds
to what I could make. I experimented more than I ever have
in my practice, each day making drawings, collages and
paintings different to what I had made before. I played with
new mediums; I made a video work, shot several rolls of film,
wrote extensively everyday and collaborated with the group.
I made work that was un-precious, unfinished, raw and
completely playful. I rediscovered the joy and importance
of valuing process. I moved through my days with a newfound
sense of stillness, focus and thoughtfulness. In my
paintings, I experimented a lot with the idea of space, pairing
things back and leaving the raw beginnings of a picture. This
exploration kick started a major formal shift in my work that
I continue to push today. My time at Arteles was profoundly
moving. I learnt endlessly about my self, my practice, ways of
existing and ways of creating. I carry these discoveries with
me, and think about my time at that place so often.