Julia Sirianni ‘Suburban Sanctuaries’ (Online Only)

Julia Sirianni is an urban explorer, discovering unique scenes hidden throughout our suburbs. Documenting each location encapsulates the different emotions stirred by these sanctuaries. The scenes she selects are often absent of people but retain a trace of the humans that impact them, whether it be through a man-made structure or a path created from walking the same track every day. Many of these works were realised while the city was in isolation with most people confined to their homes. Each piece evokes memories of the calming effect experienced at the locations. This body of work combines the immediacy of plein air painting with the artist’s studio practice.

For Julia Sirianni, painting is more than a pastime – it is a way of finding calm in a world that causes anxiety. Location is everything. Each painting is the result of hours of research, scouring landscapes for the perfect space in which to immerse herself. Trained formally in Fine Art, Sirianni gravitated towards plein air painting when she discovered its intuitive, fast nature suited her own drive and boosted the confidence with which she viewed her practice. Soothed by her surroundings, Sirianni’s attention shifts to atmosphere, and using light and colour to evoke the elements in front of her.

Lately, Sirianni has sought places of calm in the inner city, a result of the restrictions the world is currently living under. Able only to take photos or complete a few short sketches, her new body of work has been completed in the studio, leading to more detail, and focus on the manmade – though she continues to push herself to complete the works quickly, while her senses retain the memory of the place she has been. These works highlight the odd beauty of human traces, and the will of nature to regrow and repair.

Julia Sirianni completed her Bachelor of Visual Art at the Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, in 2015. Winner of the Macquarie Group Emerging Art Prize People’s Choice Award, Sydney (2019), she was a finalist in the Rotary Art Spectacular (2019), the Morris Art Prize (2018), Nundah Art Show (2017) and the Brisbane Art Prize (2016).

Carrie McCarthy 2020