In late 2018, Chilean Artist, Maria Jose Benvenuto, swapped her home city of Santiago, situated in a valley surrounded by mountain ranges, for the scrubby bush lands and oceanic horizons of Sydney’s Northern Beaches. For an artist whose practice had, up until that point, been informed by the imposing mountain peaks that looked down on her previous home, Benvenuto was struck by the endless vistas of Sydney’s landscape.
South African artist, Marna Hattingh’s travels between a hybrid of fine art, literature and the complexities or contemporary life. She interrogates and articulates its collective emotions and has developed a highly unique and sought-after style, strongly influenced by an Asian sensibility and her experience as an illustrator, blending wry humour and social comment into playful palettes with a serious undertone. Drawing inspiration from an eclectic range including media, fashion, history and fictional novels, her finely drawn characters jump, dance and spin across timeless, patterned backgrounds. Each painting is extensively worked and contains its own complex narrative.