I became excited by art in the late 1980s, towards the end of a science degree, I needed to develop drawing skills as a way to describe microscopic organisms. Learning drawing gave me ‘a new way of seeing’, today my abstract art offers a similar excitement and is the way I see my environment.
Over the years I have experimented with drawing, painting, printing, photography and digital processes, as a way to understand the ambiguous intrigue I find in abstract images through out my environment.
On this journey of discovery I have moved through styles from Realism to Abstract Expressionism and have been influenced by Post-Minimalism and Non-Objective concepts, my work is now a fusion of these processes and concepts. Today variety forms an underlying concept throughout my practice representing the links I see between art and natural processes.
Studies, Experience and Exhibitions
I began my working life with a Printing Apprenticeship. After living in New Zealand for 18 months, in 1982 I enrolled as a mature age student and completed an Agricultural Science Degree. Towards the end of this degree I needed to learn drawing as a way to describe microscopic organisms, it was this that triggering an insatiable need to explore art.
My first exhibition was in 1988, when I showed a group of semi abstract coastal photographs. Since then I have continued to made and show work in solo and group exhibitions, all the time developing skills while discovering and exploring trying to understand the ambitious nature of the abstract.
In 1991 I moved from Adelaide to Queensland with my young family, starting a new life in an exciting new environment.
Then in the early 2000’s I returned to study again, this time completing a Diploma in Conservation and Land Management. Working as a Bush Regenerator, I became a team leader and developed skills in plant identification and natural area assessment. At the same time I continued making art with a growing influence from the amazing things I was seeing throughout my working day in this natural environment.
In 2016 I moved to Sydney to study Post Graduate Art at UNSW. In Sydney I had a studio and was painting full-time, combining this with UNSW study helped refine and focus my Art Practice. My life long passion for exploring, with keen observation and drawing skills, would allow me to produce scientific illustrations, but it is the unknown intrigue of the abstract I pursue in my art practice today.
Brenton Schwab 