Flourish

As the lockdown began I needed to open up. I needed to take the negative energy and convert it into something positive. This piece is one in a series of works I have been creating during Covid-19. This body of work is the visual account of my resistance against the urge to shrink and fade.

Instead I chose to expand.

Instead I chose to flourish.

Working big I made bold movements across the canvas. In long continuous strokes I allowed the shapes to grow and stretch, enjoying the evolution of the forms as they playfully intermingled and overlapped.

The feeling I was looking for in creating these works was freedom.

Working with bright, vibrant colour combinations these pieces are designed to energise and invigorate. Through my own biomorphic language this is what I hope to convey to the viewer.

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Stef Harris is a Melbourne-based emerging artist working from her studio in Fitzroy. Born in Canberra, Australia, Stef graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Art from Deakin University in 2010. Working mostly with charcoal and paint, Stef’s work evolved from primarily figurative with a focus on portraiture to becoming increasingly concerned with expression and conveying emotion, then purely and boldly abstract from 2017 onward.

With a love for drawing from a young age, Stef attended art classes and workshops in Canberra before moving to Melbourne where she became immersed in the colour and vibrancy of the street art in Fitzroy and Collingwood where she lived, and was introduced to the world of abstract art during her studies at University.

Inspired by artists such a Cy Twombly, Franz Kline as well as the expressive use of colour of Matisse, Stef’s gestural vocabulary ranges from delicate, romantic, and almost calligraphic linework to bold, energetic, sweeping brushstrokes brought together with the expressive power of colour to convey and evoke visceral experiences, emotions and associations for the viewer.

Stef has gone on to develop her practice completing workshops in a wide variety of mediums and attending art programs in Melbourne and Sydney. Her work is held in private and corporate collections in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and internationally (Canada and New Zealand), and she has exhibited at various galleries across Melbourne.