Artist Statement:

My practice is a meditation on my experience as a neurodivergent mother working in the space of abstraction – drawing parallels between the process of art making, gardening and mothering, through paint. My art is a reflection of my mind, where chaos and sensory overload coexist with moments of joy and clarity. In the studio, I embrace diverse, saturated mark making and mixed media to capture this intense and fragmented inner world.

The work I make consistently depicts abstracted landscapes as a formative entry point into a call and response approach in the studio. I am interested in nurturing my painting process like a gardener tending to the earth; a balance between control and surrender. I combine the frenetic pace of motherhood and the meditative flow of gardening into the studio where I’m able to cultivate a space that offers both refuge and challenge.

Using colour and brush work reminiscent of the Impressionists, Post Impressionists and Fauves; the likes of Bonnard, Tom Thomson and Lois Dodd; I’m also engaged in an iterative process of creation, destruction and rebirth not unlike the Abstract Expressionists, drawing inspiration from Joan Mitchell’s gestural approach to landscape; as well as contemporaries, Cecily Brown, Shara Hughes, Claire Tabouret and Sky Glabush.

I live and paint on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people.

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 currently shows work with Olsen Gallery in Sydney, Australia.