Sonia Martignon
Mirrored
2023

About the Item

Living and working as a landscape artist in Northern Territory, Australia, Sonia Martignon documents the fragility and beauty of landscapes under increasing strain. Her artworks pose the question: how do we preserve this beautiful planet and what will our future be if we don’t embrace the natural world and learn from it? Sonia was born in Sydney, Australia to an Italian father and British mother. Moving to the remote Northern Territory when Sonia was two years old, her European immigrant parents embraced the wild, foreign landscape. With the closest major cities nearly 4000km away, they were surrounded by seemingly endless dryland savannah and sandy deserts, punctuated with pockets of monsoon vine forests, floodplains, rivers, and billabongs all teaming with spectacular biodiversity. Untouched and isolated, this rugged and ancient terrain became Sonia’s backyard, and its impact is evident in all her work. Sonia obtained a Bachelor of Fine Art at Charles Darwin University. Completing further studies in architecture and education she is also a qualified teacher. Beginning a fulltime arts practice in 2019, Sonia has held solo exhibitions and participated in multiple curated group shows across Australia. In 2022 Sonia undertook an art residency at Tactile Arts Studios. Her work has been selected and exhibited in several national art prizes including the Korea-Australian Art Foundation Art Prize, Sydney (2018, 2021, 2022), Lethbridge Landscape Prize, Brisbane (2021), 20000 Small-Scale Art Awards, Brisbane (2021, 2024), and the Kennedy Art Prize, Adelaide (2023). Sonia was awarded the Korea-Australian Art Foundation Art Prize in 2022 and the Katherine Prize in 2023. Sonia Martignon says of her work… Armed with the belief that all living things are connected by the habitat they share, my work aims to capture this precious wildness, documenting its wealth of colour, spirit, and mood. It pays homage to fertile environments that are under constant threat. My subject matter is tethered to locations which are deeply and intimately familiar yet simultaneously filtered through humankind’s inherent sense of being ‘other’, of viewing ourselves as separate from the natural world. While most organisms co-exist in harmony, exposed to the elements, living a life framed by sky and earth, humans seem unwilling to acknowledge that we also belong to this fully interconnected ecosystem. My work explores this sensation of being an observer ‘looking in’ to a beautiful, extraordinary, foreign wilderness. These landscape paintings emerge from numerous layers of acrylic paint applied on intricately hand cut plywood, a device developed to emphasise shadows and space. These pieces explore the relationship between positive and negative in order to understand the beauty found when nature and humanity are in a state of balance. The sculpted edges of the work cast shadows, offering a portal into the landscape, to focus on a rapidly disappearing ecology. Drawing on aesthetics anchored in the verdant tropical landscapes of northern Australia, my process includes documenting these places through a myriad of photographs and sketches which become the foundation of my work. Referencing these resources I decipher the landscape, blending the literal with the interpreted, creating work that blurs boundaries between documentation and memory. Adhering to the words of Corot, recording the landscape is about finding moments of ‘truth bathed in an impression received from nature’. The work is designed to share and ignite a sense of wonder and reverence for our natural world. We have all become such brief visitors to the wilderness, it is hard to be passionate about protecting something when we are so removed from it. Landscape paintings are a gentle reminder of what lies beyond the walls they hang on.

Creator:

Sonia Martignon (Australian)

Creation Year:

2023

Dimensions:

Height: 14.17 in (36 cm)Width: 10.24 in (26.01 cm)

Medium:

Plywood,Acrylic

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

21st Century

Framing:

Framing Options Available

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Materials

Plywood, Acrylic

Sonia Martignon
Glowing, 2023

$1,500

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