Miranda Skoczek

Mr. Ramaiama Bangbang, 2010, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas 900 x 1530 mm

Land of Beasts and Birds, 2011, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 1680 x 1370 mm

Wondrous Wings, 2011, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 1680 x 1370 mm

The Young and Colourful Doe, 2010, oil and acrylic on canvas, 1680 x 1370 mm

An Impala through my Window, 2009, oil, acrylic and biro on canvas, 920 x 770 mm

Among my Swan, 2010, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 1680 x 1370 mm

Black and White Arrangements, 2009, oil, acrylic and enamel on canvas, 1530 x 1370 mm

Hawa Mahal, 2009, oil and acrylic on canvas, 1830 x 1530 mm

Artist Statement

Exploring themes such as memory, inside/outside, the domestic and self, my practice is a constant search for beauty, and an historical and symbolic palimpsest of the history of image making, and the history of my making! From the beginning of time, humankind has displayed a penchant for embellishment, and a desire to decorate, and be nourished by their surroundings.
Travel and my engagement with different cultures heavily inform my practice, creating a dialogue between places experienced and imagined.

Sampling and remixing decorative iconography from the history of visual culture, I seek to create works of opulence and luxury. Ignoring any distance between hi and lo art, I am committed to producing work loaded with positivity, and hope to engage the viewer physically, as well as psychologically. The built up layers afford the canvasses with a sense of history, as I am constantly in a process of hiding and revealing.

Textiles, and traditional dress from around the globe, folk art, modernist design, architecture, Islamic motifs and Mughal miniatures, are but a few of the sources from which I borrow. Often combining graphic shapes and silhouettes in fields of colour, I explore the boundaries between abstraction and representation, design and the painterly….in many cultures, pattern is not purely decoration, but also a form of identification.

Miranda Skoczek’s Website