Belonging Painting

Tanya Wales is an Australian abstract artist, based in South Australia. Following professional education in Design Arts and Graphic Design between 1994 and 1997, Tanya began to develop her creative thinking in more abstract forms of expression. This included a period of training at the National Art School in 2007 and private tutoring with the acclaimed Sydney artist, Marissa Purcell between 2008 and 2014. During this time, Tanya developed several bodies of work and exhibited at various group and solo shows in Sydney and Melbourne, including seven exhibitions at The Other Art Fairs. She continues to demonstrate the evolution of her work in exhibitions and galleries. ARTIST STATEMENT The scale and tranquillity of Tanya’s works form the basis of her biography and invite the audience to pause, to breathe, to feel. Spurning the use of familiar reference points to elicit an emotional response, the flowing forms and fields of colour provoke deeply personal and diverse interpretations. A confluence of techniques including pouring, transparent layers, fine brushwork and painterly marks are used to create an otherworldly narrative balanced by a sense of ambiguity and the illusion of simplicity. The multi-layered tension between colour and form provide the energy in each piece. Calling on varied techniques and processes, Tanya engages with a considered combination of elements across a concurrent series of works, building a complex narrative within each piece that references a point in time and a playful celebration of painting itself. Once completed, each work conveys the artist’s fascination with the fluid inevitability of life’s journey and with the paradox of knowing that despite all that has gone before all we ever really have is one perfect moment: the present.