Location: Australia
Amber Koroluk-Stephenson's current practice draws directly from her day-to-day experience within the Tasmanian suburban landscape. She seeks out points of tension within these environments in an effort to deconstruct the idealised images of suburbia seen in Australian popular culture. As a voyeur exploring the homes of others Koroluk-Stephenson engages in a dialogue that pushes the boundaries between public and private space. This tension is transposed into her work as the saturated colours and shifting pictorial planes subtly obscure realistic representations of these familiar yet strange environments. Her paintings present an ambiguous instability, highlighting cracks within the suburban facade.
In her exhibition Quixotic Habitation Amber Koroluk-Stephenson playfully explores notions of utopia, drawing from her immediate suburban surrounds to present a cross section of living ideals. The imagined environments depicted in the works allude to the popularised notion of the Australian 'suburban dream' realised through self-styled attempts at creating utopia.
These paintings are characterised by a type of archaic romanticism. Framed with a mix of exotic and European plant life and embellished by youth, these familiar yet strange environments present a slippage of reality. The saturated colours and subtle shifting pictorial planes create an ambiguous instability and underlying sense of unease. These works aim to present a merge of utopian and dystopian visions that are both beautified and chaotically implausible, illustrating the absurdity of attaining utopia.
“Prelude at the Gardens Edge 2013, oil on canvas, 112 x 122cm”
In her exhibition Quixotic Habitation Amber Koroluk-Stephenson playfully explores notions of utopia, drawing from her immediate suburban surrounds to present a cross section of living ideals. The imagined environments depicted in the works allude to the popularised notion of the Australian 'suburban dream' realised through self-styled attempts at creating utopia.
These paintings are characterised by a type of archaic romanticism. Framed with a mix of exotic and European plant life and embellished by youth, these familiar yet strange environments present a slippage of reality. The saturated colours and subtle shifting pictorial planes create an ambiguous instability and underlying sense of unease. These works aim to present a merge of utopian and dystopian visions that are both beautified and chaotically implausible, illustrating the absurdity of attaining utopia.
“Staging of an Illusion 2013, oil on canvas, 168 x 366cm (tryptic - panels 168 x 122cm)”
“In the Interlude 2013, oil on canvas, 112 x 122cm ”
