The goose that laid the golden egg

I began this work with a limited palette and while working on it I was reading a book about the impact of climate change and the finite nature of the earth's resources. Every era is driven by a hunt for resources from gold, coal, precious metals etc. Each generation has viewed these resources as if they were in unlimited supply, and with little regard to the environmental impacts around their extraction. While this is a serious subject, the work reminds us through its colour palette that the earth is beautiful and that we should balance our need for these resources against environmental concerns and our legacy for future generations.

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Sydney-based abstract painter, vee_sage, learnt photography, printing her own black and white photos in the darkroom before we went digital. She began experimenting with new techniques, using solarisation (in the style of Man Ray) and hand colouring black and white photos with oil paints. At this point she coined the term photo-painting and showed her work in New Zealand.
Her interest in art was inspired by the work of the abstract expressionists, which she discovered through an Art History course at Auckland University. Many years later, after dabbling in various creative pursuits, she decided that she wanted to learn to paint and that learning to draw would be a great place to start. Her self-directed learning had to fit in around her day job and this meant workshops during the weekend or evenings.
Her move towards abstraction was inspired by a workshop in 2018 in Melbourne by Titane Laurent. Having the opportunity to share in and be inspired directly by another artist gave her the confidence to realize that her natural direction was towards abstraction. She has been working through the challenges of this ever since.