Emma Itzstein is a contemporary Australian artist whose mixed media painting practice exists as an embodiment of her exploration and understanding of human psychology. She approaches the work with philosophical and spiritual context, using gardens and the landscape as symbolic subjects to communicate personal discoveries. With an interest in themes of multiplicity and flux, through the process of applying paint, she aims to glean insight and acceptance of her own psyche as well as contextualising her connectiveness with time, place and others.
Her visual language ranges from representational to abstract - employing a tension of thin and thick paint, loose and tight marks - to conjure an inner dialogue, or wrestle, to accept paradox in every facet of life. Both her studio process and aesthetic treatment aims to marry impulse and chaos with control and consciousness, creating a visual dance between the two. In exploring this range and tension in her work, she seeks to challenge ‘all or nothing’ thinking in favour of being at peace with contradiction, radical uncertainty and infinite possibility.
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 is held in the collections of Macquarie Bank, Fiona Stanley Hospital and St John of God Hospital.
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