Artist | Anita West

Anita is a mid-career Australian artist living and working in Brisbane.  Anita has maintained a professional art practice for over 30 years and her passion is painting the unique Australian landscape. Anita has had over 25 major solo exhibitions in Sydney, Queensland, and Perth.  Her work is in the collections of public institutions, commercial businesses, regional galleries, and private homes across the world.  Anita has an enviable history of commissions and is represented in Sydney with Harvey Galleries (15 years) and Gallery One at Southport (6 years).

Anita’s paintings have won major awards, and her works have been selected in many art prizes across Australia.  Anita’s reputation for her unique, technically proficient, and beautifully layered landscapes are highly sought after as both for investment and for private collections.  Her career is continuing to gain recognition in the Australian Contemporary Market.

ANITA’S STORY

I grew up in North Queensland and spent my early years riding horses, camping, swimming, and enjoying the freedom of exploring the bushland and tropical beaches of home. It was in these formative years that my love of the land was nurtured and developed. Most of us live within a moment of the Australian bush and as a culture we are learning to embrace and love the distinct earthiness, subtle hues, chaotic rhythms, ravaging bushfires and drought-breaking rains.  We congregate around its edges and melt into its wild.  We breathe in the majestic landscapes and immerse ourselves in its fierceness and beauty. 

I am interested in the idea of romantic notions attached to the Australian bush and I am attempting to explore these elements using boundaries between abstraction and realism, emotion, and perception through my engagement with this beautiful land.

My work is mostly place based, and my practice is concerned with the recording and interpretation of natural habitat that has been preserved or protected as part of land conservation and National Park World Heritage.  Also, I am interested in exploring local bushland that is under threat of development; this can be a local community bush reserve or simply a block of land that has significant native species or old growth trees that are in danger of being rezoned or under threat of human induced changes.  I am always searching for new landscapes, and new influences for my paintings and I use these ideas as a backdrop for my work. 


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