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)”
“Prelude at the Gardens Edge 2013, oil on canvas, 112 x 122cm”
“In the Interlude 2013, oil on canvas, 112 x 122cm ”
