Emma Itzstein was born in 1991 in Western Australia and lives and paints on Noongar Country. Her current practice is an amalgamation and physical exploration of her experience as a neurodivergent mother, working in the space of abstraction. Her painting is a reflection of her mind, where chaos and sensory overload coexist with moments of joy, clarity and calm. In the studio, materially and technically, she embraces a dynamic interplay between saturated colour, mixed media, and diverse mark-making to capture this intense and fragmented inner world. Itzstein’s studio-led practice allows for the paintings to aesthetically mirror these inner sensations and emotions which pulse with urgency and unpredictability.
As a mother, Itzstein says she is “attuned to the quiet chaos of daily life, where beauty and overwhelm collide. I take the frenetic pace of motherhood into my studio where I am able to cultivate a space that offers both refuge and challenge”. She is interested in approaching painting like a gardener tending to the earth; a balance between control and a surrender to the change of the seasons. She processes the information in front of her in a call and response style; “I plant, wait, and weed, much like the synaptic pruning that occurs in the brain”.
Itzstein’s use of colour and brush work is reminiscent of Bonnard, Monet and The Fauves; yet she is engaged in a continuous, iterative process of creation, destruction, and rebirth not unlike the abstract expressionists, specifically drawing inspiration from Joan Mitchell’s gestural response to the energy of music, as well as the highly stylised psychological landscapes of contemporaries like Shara Hughes and Claire Tabouret.
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 is represented by Otomys Contemporary in Melbourne.
