Mother and child of the Red Land

In my drawing I attempted to bring to life an Indigenous mother and child, symbolic of traditional owners and ongoing custodians of Australia (otherwise known as the Red Land). The colour red has a deeply redemptive quality to it, as it appears in many of my artworks. In this specific drawing it brings forth an existential and conceptual urge for a multidimensional healing, purification and liberation of the unspoken and unforgiven traumas of deep separation and loss. Working on this drawing was very meaningful and cathartic for me also, as it reaffirmed empathy and a sense of connectedness flourishing within me, while I speculate upon a symbolic redemption transcending time and space.

This artwork was a Finalist in Lyn McCrea Memorial Drawing Prize 2020 and exhibited in Noosa Regional Gallery, QLD

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Elif Sezen is a Melbourne-based multidisciplinary artist, writer/poet. She holds a PhD in Fine Art from Monash University. For over a decade, Elif has been investigating possibilities of reconceptualising and poeticising memory traces, existential states and a sense of place through poetry-based installations, photographic works, sculptural forms, paintings, drawings and mixed-media works. Her newest landscapes explore otherworldly atmospheres with abstract, surreal, ethereal, celestial and psychedelic impressions.
Elif’s broader multidisciplinary art practice engages with interwoven themes of trauma, grief, displacement, homecoming, reintegration and transcendence. She experiments in creating artistic expressions that are imaginative, yet also grounded in contemporary thought, exploring the universality of the human experience.
Her works are held in private collections, including JAHM (Justin Art House Museum). She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent solo show at Five Walls (2025); and group shows at Fox Yard Studio - UK (2026), Five Walls (2026), The Museum of Australian Photography - MAPh (2025), The Museum of Art and Culture Yapang (MAC Yapang Art Prize 2025), Yarra Sculpture Gallery (2025), Project8 Gallery (2024), The National Portrait Gallery Canberra (Darling Portrait Prize 2024), CICA Museum Korea (2024) and the Metro Tunnel Creative Program (2023–2024).