“I felt owned by the landscape and always at home . . .”
The colour-filled paintings and sculptures by Sydney-based Amber Hearn are reflective of her Annandale studio, where the artist welcomes in a kaleidoscope of hues. The composition and vividness stem from Hearn’s transient upbringing, travelling around the world with her family, living in Papua New Guinea and regional New South Wales. As such, the works transport the viewer to another place and time, evocative of memory and emotion.
Can you tell us more about your studio?
Currently, I’m working out of Higher Ground Studio in Annandale. I have an extremely light-filled space, which I love. With colour being the main essence of my work, I really need natural light to mix everything correctly. I have minimal furniture, just a couch, big white walls, a little chair, and a plant. I try to keep minimal textures or colours in the space as it helps me focus on the painting and see it for what it is as it develops.
Amber Hearn in her studio
Do you find you can express different narratives depending on the medium used: painting, sculpture, video, or installation?
When painting, I mainly work with acrylic paint. Once my colours are mixed up, my process is very fast and involves lots of movement, scratching, dabbing, and flinging my arms around. I’ve been told I look like a child when I paint. Acrylic lends itself to my fast pace, bodily-involved process. I mostly work with lots of layers, so I need quick drying time.
The narratives explored in my work are very similar; whether I am making a video or painting, I find my work is an exploration of the self within the landscape and notions of home, identity, and place. Recently, I felt a strong relationship with 3D space for my exhibition at Curatorial+Co – it was as though the forms wanted to jump out of the canvas into my hands. As a result, I decided to play with found objects and various soft materials that I had lying around. The process of making these sculptures felt very intuitive, as if I was bringing my paintings to life. I see them as an extension of painting, not necessarily as sculptures. They challenge the border where painting ends, and sculpture begins.
Amber Hearn, My Front Yard
I’ve read your nomadic childhood inspires your work. How do you translate this into your paintings and video works?
My experience growing up and moving constantly led me to see home as that which is constant and familiar, the landscape. I felt owned by the landscape and always at home when immersed in the natural environment. I spent my childhood years in Papua New Guinea and rural NSW. Much of my work is a fusion of the tropical landscape and the mountainous ranges of NSW. Flying in small aircraft [with my father] informed the way I see the land in a topographical, simplified forms way.
In particular, a recent work of mine, My Front Yard, which has been selected for the 2022 Paddington Art Prize, is a strong depiction of this blending of the two landscapes, with palm
trees and a mountain. The two worlds are quite different; however, for me, they merge as the familiar/home.
Your work also touches on notions of the body, in particular for women, but also nature. What was the turning point that drew you to these concepts?
I’m interested in physical work within the landscape, the ideas of home and memory within a specific place, and what the body leaves behind. I made a video work titled Lands Bride, which was shown at Caboolture Regional Art Gallery [Queensland] as part of the Her Beauty and Her Terror exhibition, which drew on the poetry of Dorothea Mackellar. The video was filmed in drought-affected Duri, where my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had all lived.
My paintings often present the solitary nature of being alone in the landscape through the lack of human depiction. Yet, the essence is there within the bodily gesture and mark held within the work. I’m fascinated by what memories and marks we leave behind in the landscape, and I try and capture this in my work.
Hearn’s work My Front Yard is on view in the 2022 Paddington Art Prize Exhibition of National Finalists at Defiance Gallery at Mary Place, Sydney, until 6 November 2022. She will also be exhibiting in Curatorial+Co’s Melbourne pop-up exhibition, There With Us, at 14 Langridge Road, Collingwood VIC 3066, from 19 November 2022.
Emma-Kate Wilson is an art and design writer based on Gayemagal Country (Sydney).
