I live and paint on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people. My current practice is an amalgamation and physical exploration of my experience as a neurodivergent mother who works in the space of abstraction. My painting is a reflection of my mind, where chaos and sensory overload often coexist with moments of joy, clarity and calm. In the studio, materially and technically I embrace a dynamic interplay between saturated colour, mixed media, and diverse mark-making to capture this intense and fragmented inner world. My studio-led practice allows for the paintings to aesthetically mirror these inner sensations and emotions which pulse with urgency and unpredictability.

As a mother, I am attuned to the quiet chaos of daily life, where both beauty and overwhelm coexist. I take the frenetic pace of motherhood into my studio where I am able to cultivate a space that offers both refuge and challenge. I am interested in approaching my paintings like a gardener tending to the earth; a balance between control and a surrender to the change of the seasons. I process the information in front of me in a call and response style; I plant, wait, and weed, much like the synaptic pruning that occurs in the brain.

Additionally painting becomes a meditative act, a form of repetitive labour, using colour and brush work reminiscent of Bonnard, Monet and The Fauves; yet I feel I am engaged in a continuous, iterative process of creation, destruction, and rebirth not unlike the abstract expressionists, specifically drawing inspiration from Joan Mitchell’s gestural response to the energy of music, as well as the highly stylised psychological landscapes of contemporaries like Shara Hughes and Claire Tabouret.

Artist Bio:

Emma Itzstein holds a Bachelor of Laws and Arts from the University of Western Australia. Finalist in the Paddington Art Prize (2022) and winner of the Macquarie Emerging Artist Prize (2020), the City of South Perth Emerging Artist Award (2014), Mid West Art Prize Youth Award (2013) and Mandorla Art Emerging Artist Award (2010), Emma is recognised for her painting and unique state printmaking. Her portraiture has been selected for inclusion in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize (semi-finalist 2022) and the Lester Prize Salon des Refuses (2013). Her work has been published in Vogue Living Australia and is held in the collections of Macquarie Bank, Fiona Stanley Hospital and St John of God Hospital. She is represented by Otomys Contemporary in Melbourne.

Contacts:

Artist: emitzstein@gmail.com

Gallery: hannah@otomys.com

Instagram: @emmaitzstein

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