In her new book Artists at Home, Brazilian-born Australian writer, photographer, and creative director Karina Dias Pires explores the art of 32 extraordinary female Australian artists.
Through interviews held in their own homes, Karina offers an intimate look behind the scenes of the artmaking of such artists as Yvette Coppersmith and Louise Olsen.
Who is Louise Olsen?
My childhood was magical – there was a feeling that anything was possible in a creative world
Louise Olsen is an artist who needs little introduction. As well as being a gifted painter, she is also the co-founder of Dinosaur Designs, one of Australia’s most iconic design brands, known for its unique handmade resin wares, sculpted in organic forms and rich colours.
Born in Watsons Bay, Sydney, Louise’s path to becoming an artist seemed inevitable, with her dad being well-known Australian painter John Olsen and her mum Valerie also a talented artist in her own right. As a family of four, including her brother Tim Olsen, their whole world revolved around art, paintings, books, music and artefacts of inspiration.
Her parents were natural teachers and opened her eyes to seeing beyond the surface of things, so she could look deep into the structure to get the essence of the subject. ‘Art has always been my life, it’s in my blood and is a perpetual conversation. Art is my passion, love and drive. I feel I never chose to be an artist; I feel it chose me,’ she says.
Nature is Louise’s most significant source of inspiration. ‘I have a fascination with balance and the relationship between being bold and the sensitivity of the delicate. Art and nature are always at the heart of my work. There is something beautiful about the time things take to evolve and perfect in the natural world,’ she says.
Her practice is process driven and she experiments with a range of mediums from resin and collage to acrylic and pigments; she believes each material has its own unique voice. Sometimes she sets up the pigment and painting, pouring many layers to get interesting and unexpected reactions, like playing with the idea of the law of chance. ‘I love the elasticity and the beautiful oiliness and intensity of the pigment of paints: the touch, and the rub, and the mark-making, it gives me goosebumps, it moves my soul.’
Who is Yvette Coppersmith?
For centuries, artists have understood the image of the self is a construct, and a useful one to position oneself in society.
It has been said that to capture the essence of someone else, you first need to capture the essence of yourself. With a career spanning over twenty years, Melbourne-based artist Yvette Coppersmith has experimented widely with various subject matter, including still life, figurative and abstract paintings, yet she still feels a strong pull towards self-portrait.
During her early childhood, Yvette watched opera and ballet DVDs. She also studied and drew faces from magazines. Later on, she began depicting friends, family and herself. She was recognised for her unique style and received a commendation award for her graduate exhibition. Her paintings for that exhibition were all portraits of women and included a self-portrait, a portrait of her grandmother Ida and another of her great-aunt Basia; three full-length portraits to scale, which were hung level with the floor so the viewer could meet the subject at their actual height.
It wasn’t until 2009 that her taste started shifting to process-driven work and abstraction, welcoming more tactile and textural qualities. Yvette works predominantly in oil on linen, and occasionally on primed jute. The layers of paint are mixed with linseed oil (and sometimes sand) to create her signature bold texture.
In 2018, Yvette won the Archibald Prize awarded by the Art Gallery of NSW for her painting Self-Portrait, After George Lambert. After being a finalist four times, she is one of ten female artists to have won the prestigious prize in 100 years.
Would you like to know more? Pick up a copy of Artists at Home by Karina Dias Pires. Published by Thames & Hudson Australia, it is available where all good books are sold, RRP $59.99
This article was originally published under the title Making her mark in Issue 33 – Dream a little dream. You can purchase this issue and enjoy more enchanting content here.
