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Talia Delaney
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Some Background About My Artistic Journey As an 8th generation Australian born near the Warrumbungle Mountains in NSW, I absorbed the blue-hazed mountain wilderness and dusty red earth plains as if by osmosis. A move to the Central Coast of NSW for my teenage years added a passion for mesmeric waves, shell-strewn beaches and sculpted ochre sandstone cliffs. The Australian wilderness is, and always has been, a vital part of my art and psyche. I tried to paint these scenes, but typically for the 1950's, art classes were forbidden to me by parents and teachers, as I "had academic potential". I won a Commonwealth Scholarship to Sydney University and enjoyed studying Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology, but still longed to study art, so applied to the National Art School for evening classes. Not a good idea! I was accepted, but had to drop out to complete my Degrees. Sydney University was a hot-bed of social activism in the Sixties, so social issues influenced my art when I finally studied for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in North America in the Seventies. Another important influence on my art was travelling overland through Asia and Europe for 9 months en route to the USA, experiencing Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim art and cultures, and famous museums of Europe like the Louvre and Prado. Ideas and images, patterns and colours, people and architecture, were inspirational and awe-inspiring. As migrants to the USA we could work and study, so did both, ending up in Michigan, where I found an exciting and comprehensive printmaking program at Wayne State University. My prints expressed social and gender issues - but the Australian wilderness complete with bird-life and fire, crept into the backgrounds. I illustrated a book for a friend on the " 1 Ching" (the Chinese Book of Changes (published 1974) which was fun, and part of my Master's in Art (which Degree I was unable to finish, owing to a financial need to work again - a common artist's malady!). Even the "I Ching" illustrations ended up with a significant complement of Australian flora and fauna! While working, I took evening watercolour classes, and suddenly discovered a love for the vibrant colours and freedom of expression in this medium which I had not found in printmaking. I became a painter. Since I could not relate as an artist to the cold, long winters, with snow and leafless skeletal trees, I started to paint large blown-up studies of colourful flora. I studied with many wonderful artists, and exhibited extensively in North America before returning to Australia in 1986, with a son and daughter to take travelling throughout the Australian wilderness. So good to be back, with brilliant skies and sun and magnificent evergreen eucalyptus trees! In a way I have come full circle as an artist. As a child I attempted to paint the Australian wilderness in watercolour. With many diversions - into social commentary art, large-scale metaphorical floral art, and 5 years of WA Goldfields historical and mining art (where we settled down for high school studies and university entrance ), I am now back seriously exploring and painting my first and most pervasive and enduring passion - the Australian wilderness (with Adelaide as base). My current project is a long-term "Australian Flora in Wilderness" series with accompanying book. I believe that, as artists, our best works will arise when we explore what we are truly passionate about - whatever that may be. |
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