Sylvie Veness

Sylvie Veness is a recent Master of Fine Art graduate from the National Art School, Sydney. In 2021, she was awarded the East Sydney Doctors Scholarship in support of her postgraduate degree. In 2017, she was awarded the University Medal for the Bachelor of Fine Art in addition to the John Olsen Drawing Prize and Parkers Printmaking Prize. She was also a 2018 finalist in the Meroogal and Waverley Art Prize. Veness has exhibited in various group shows in locations throughout Sydney including the Stacks Projects Gallery, Kudos Gallery and the Chrissie Cotter Gallery. Her work is held in both public and private collections.

#4 | Towards Denouement, 2019 - 2022, mixed media, dimensions variable.

Specialising in drawing, printmaking and textiles, Sylvie Veness creates abstract works on paper that explore the nature of risk verses certainty. Veness’s habitual approach to making is governed by systems of order, specifically the archetypal grid. Channelling this modernist artistic device is primarily an act of meditation that regulates thoughts, feelings and sensations. Corresponding gestures are controlled, repetitive and precise. Veness scrutinises and antagonises such preferential behaviour, by engaging in performances that challenge her authority and ease. These interior investigations are designed to broaden self awareness by easing tensions between control and vulnerability. The integration of methods such as automatic writing and blind drawing are arduous and emotionally taxing, yet edifyingly rewarding. As a result the union of these conflicting methodologies result in works that capture static and dynamic movement. Stitched and perforated grids hover above grounds of confessional scrawling, scratches and entangled threads; the tactile effects of which call for closer inspection. Consequently, Veness’s psychological self portraits are intimate studies of the human condition; tangible objects of internal power plays and self revelations.