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nadine

My name is Nadine Sawyer; I was born in Hastings, New Zealand. I am an Artist and I live in Brisbane, Australia. My Art practice is very diverse. I make Installations, sculpture, abstract and figurative paintings, works on paper and drawings.

Obtaining a Masters of Arts from Monash University I was helped greatly by receiving an Australian Post Graduate Award. I also Studied Art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and the Queensland College of Art in Morning Side, Brisbane, Australia.

I have exhibited Paintings and Installation in Japan, South Korea, The United States, New Zealand and Vanuatu and across Australia.


EDUCATION
1999-2002 : Master of Arts (Painting) - Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
1998 : Bachelor of Arts with Honors (Painting) - Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
1995-1997 : Bachelor of Arts (Painting) - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
1989-1990 : Certificate of Introductory Art and Design - Queensland College of Art, Brisbane, Australia


ANGEL PAINTINGS
Nadine Sawyer's favourite motif is the Angel. Her angels have a romantic, Chagall-esque quality, coupled with a balletic line and graphic simplicity. They are discovered occupied in everyday activities such as cooking, gardening, embracing, picking flowers, at the computer or having a picnic. Or sometimes they are flying, blowing horns or playing lutes, because as she explains, "I paint angels to carry joy, hope, love, poetry and happiness into people's lives."

These gentle characters offer a quiet message of the endless creative potential human beings could express if we only allowed it to enter our lives. The word Angelos means "messenger" in Greek and the Archangel Raphael's name means "one who heals". These are healing images for healing hearts and minds through a poetry of feeling. Her angel's sing a silent song that Love is a fountain ever flowing for blessing our own lives and in helping others.

Moved by the current of emotion and feeling tones sounding through her, the angels become the witness of the inner story, reflecting the artist's life and her pilgrimage through the ups and downs encountered in a modern Australian culture.


CREATIVE PROCESS
"The subject is painted with such great urgency it's as if there's not enough time!" Sawyer speaks of her creative process. This urgency drives the spontaneity of the brush work and the necessity of the line - to her it is as if the subject demanded immediate liberation from its internal abode much like the birth of a child. Together with spontaneity, Nadine credits editing as the other pole of the process. This important stage includes painting over, whiting out and going over often large sections of the previously worked painting, so it evolves organically, in an accretive development that is more arrived at than predetermined.

Copyright © 2004-2010 Nadine Sawyer All Rights Reserved