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Bio

Shelley Cowper (3)_edited.jpg

Born in Auckland, New Zealand, works in Perth, Western Australia.

Australia became my home in 1986, after an extensive backpacking trip through Asia, Africa, Europe, and three years work in London. Relocating to Scotland for four years with my family in 1997, I attended Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in 2001, graduating with an Honours degree in Fine Arts before returning to Australia in 2002.

Drawing on personal experience to interweave themes of site, place and emotional situations recent work explores the ephemeral world of water and sky through the ‘porthole/portal’ of time spent sailing in a circumnavigation of Australia. Pristine, fragile, and vulnerable ecosystems in remote and isolated locations provide inspiration for my artwork. Current works use the ‘porthole’ to symbolise the boat as both a vessel of containment, reducing a vast landscape to what can be seen from the interior, and a ‘portal’ to other worlds and places. The landscape is often used as a metaphor to describe an experience. I work primarily on paper through printmaking and mixed media techniques, to merge and develop ideas and convey knowledge through colour, shape and form. 

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