Debutants : Peta Minnici Written by Victoria Hynes
15th January 2019 Issue 87
Peta Minnici has been a stand out student whilst completing her Master of Fine Arts at the National Art School over the past several years. In 2015, she won The John Olsen Award for Figure Drawing, as well as the Parkers Fine Art Award for Painting, both held at NAS. In 2017 she was also a finalist for the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship and has participated in group shows with Sydney’s Dominik Mersch Gallery, Manly Art Gallery and GAFFA Gallery. With a forthcoming solo exhibition at Sydney’s May Space in 2019, her subtle yet emotive artworks are sure to garner even more attention. Minnici’s tonal still life and figurative compositions evoke a pensive nostalgia akin to a faded photo album . Embracing the traditional medium of drawing, she employs the painstaking method of hatching to build up evocative images that shift between abstraction and realism. In a parallel series of watercolour and oil paintings, she slowly builds up her images with layers of translucent paint. Often drawn from private photographs, her works become a subjective recording of personal memories and past events. Describing her current practice, the artist remarks: “ I aim to undo the photographic representation of each subject into small brush strokes of tone and colour, imbuing each image with a sensation associated with memory. It’s also symbolic in that each mark creates a recording of what I have seen, heard and felt. I like to think that my paintings capture nostalgia with wistful affection and sometimes cynical humor - without being too melancholy.” - written by Victoria Hynes
