Miranda Free
Nannup, WA
Representational artist who paints still life, landscape and figurative works while living the dream in a small country town in southwestern Australia.
MessageMiranda has always loved drawing and painting and as a young person intended on going to art school – however her plans were side-tracked when she decided to study Science, Education and Communication at university. She worked in these fields for 20 years, satisfying her artistic yearnings by developing graphic design and desktop publishing skills to support her career.
After the birth of her third son she realised that she wanted to pursue her first passion and undertook several years of training through the Arts Academy, an atelier style arts school in Brisbane, Australia. During this period she taught art to children and adults through schools, universities and studios. In early 2013 she moved to Perth, Australia and devoted herself to practicing art fulltime
Miranda prefers painting from life, usually in oils, moving between landscape, still life and figurative genres, but is also proficient in other media and occasionally produces watercolours, mixed media and drawn artworks.
During 2015-16 she travelled around Australia painting the landscape en plein air approximately every 100 km using a range of media. These studies, together with photos and memories inform larger oil paintings that sometimes move into the realm of surrealism, but just as often are either impressionistic in nature or realistic.
Now based in Nannup, where she practices in her recently completed bespoke gallery studio, she has exhibited in several solo and many group exhibitions in Brisbane, Perth, Kuala Lumpur, Thailand and throughout the south west region of WA. She is inspired by the wonderful wildflowers of the area and enjoys painting highly patterned still life works and undertaking portrait and figurative commissions. She has been awarded several prizes for her still life and landscape works and has been selected to exhibit in national portrait prize exhibitions.
Since moving to Nannup she has been instrumental in founding and coordinating the Nannup Art Trail which has grown to become the Blackwood River Arts Trail encompassing a number of towns and surrounding areas along the Blackwood River.
Statement
My still life works in recent years have become focused on florals, sometimes as the main subject and sometimes through the highly patterned fabric backgrounds. The abundance of wildflowers where I live has provided inspiration, as has the idea of combining interesting domestic objects (often reminiscent of past eras) with fabrics from my wardrobe. I often use dramatically lit subjects to add another dimension to works that link personal history, inspirations and current preoccupations – flora, mystery & contemplation. I usually complete my works from life in my studio. Other works are created with the intent of providing meditative foci through pleasing compositions, many based around jugs from my extensive collection.
My landscapes are usually painted outdoors, and I have experiences a great diversity of conditions when working this way. Connection to place is an important feature of the Australian psyche and many of Australia’s most loved artists have turned to the landscape as their subject. The great open spaces and variety of the landscapes here provide endless inspiration. Travelling around Australia for nearly nine months from late 2015 through to August 2016 I documented the landscape painting en plein air. Stopping about every 100 km I created over 180 studies using a variety of media at or near each destination. Since completing this journey, I have used the studies and photographic references to create a body of work that reflects my experience of the landscape in larger oil paintings.
My figurative and portrait works are usually larger in size and whilst I rely on photographs to complete them, where possible I initially spend time with my subjects drawing and undertaking quick painted studies to inform the work. Many of the works are a collage of background, items of significance as well as the main subject as I am interested in the layers of meaning and history that make up a person and their narrative.
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