Into the Forest

Drawing on paper in watercolour, acrylic, pastel and chalk.

Built through layered washes. I usually start with acrylic white washes and then draw into the layer wet/dry until forms emerge. White paint is used to knock back and rework areas of the surface, after which pastel and chalk are used to draw back into these passages. The acrylic picks up some of the pigment from the chalk so can create an overall colour. Sometimes I will paint acrylic over the top, creating layers and allowing the materials to mix and shift in colour.

The forms emerge organically through the process and these works allow me to enjoy the physicality of drawing again.

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Amanda Robins is an Australian painter whose work explores psychological and emotional states through abstract oil paintings and works on paper. Her practice is driven by an ongoing interest in painting as a way of investigating inner experience and the possibilities of materials like oil paint and watercolour.

Working intuitively in the studio, Robins experiments with colour, gesture and form, allowing the process of painting to unfold through exploration and play. The studio remains a space of curiosity and discovery, where ideas emerge through the physical act of making.

Robins studied painting and drawing at Monash University, the Victorian College of the Arts and the College of Fine Art, UNSW. She has taught painting and drawing at several tertiary institutions in Australia and was Head of Painting and Drawing at the South Australian School of Art in Adelaide from 2006 to 2009.

Alongside her studio practice, she works as a psychotherapist in private practice, working with people with a history of attachment trauma
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Website: amandarobinsart.com