Sylvie Veness

Sylvie Veness is an emerging artist based in Wollongong, NSW. Specialising in drawing, printmaking and textiles, Veness creates abstract works on paper that respond to her perception of feeling verses knowing. This awareness is articulated through the workmanship of risk verses certainty, two conflicting methods of making that challenge habitual thoughts and behaviour. The resultant works are psychological self-portraits that address notions of order, restraint, obsession and Vulnerability.

Veness has recently graduated with a Masters of Fine Art from the National Art School, Sydney. This qualification was supported by her acquisition of the 2021 East Sydney Doctors Scholarship. In 2017, Veness was awarded the University Medal for the Bachelor of Fine Art degree in addition to the John Olsen Drawing Prize and the Parkers Printmaking Prize. She was also a 2018 finalist for the Meroogal Art Prize and the Waverley Art Prize.

#36 | (Un)weave, 2021, etching and thread on paper, 45cm x 65cm, $850.

The ground image of (Un)weave was created in 2017 from the printed alignment of three distressed, discarded copper plates that circulate the National Art School printmaking studio. Developed in collaboration with chance, this misprint documents my early attempts to bypass conscious design. Conceptually I was drawn to these plates as I regarded them as historic relics and silent witnesses of my immediate environment. Technically the print is woeful, featuring lines and surfaces that are carelessly smudged and over inked. Aesthetically however this negligence aptly reflects the melancholy I was experiencing at the time. Returning to this print in 2021 and reworking it with thread is liken to a conversation with the old self. More poignantly however it considers the triumph in hardship and the necessary embrace of artistic failure.