Artist's Statement

“to uniquely express my inner voice to create works of art that uplift and inspire”

Bronwyn Russell is a Brisbane born clay and collage artist whose love in life is creating something unique and soul nourishing. In 2000 her artistic journey was rediscovered whilst living on the Sunshine Coast where she attended a one day a week course in expressive painting at Caloundra TAFE. That then led her to practical art studies from Nambour to Cairns, then back down to Brisbane where she spent 2 years studying Architectural and Sculptural Ceramics at Gateway TA FE, whilst working as a domestic cleaner. A calling to New Zealand arose at the beginning of 2004 and off she went to work as a dish pig in a friend’s café in a tiny ski town called Ohakune.

It was whilst she was there that she discovered something totally different to her passion for clay. And that was a passion for teabags. An irresistible urge to create arose within her so she started the hunting and gathering process. Hunting that which inspired her and gathering that which she would need to fulfilled her expression of this idea. Bronwyn’s inspiration was texture and the means to fulfil this expression was coffee grinds and teabags from the kitchen sink in which she would wash countless dishes and scrape countless scraps. Not to mention the written orders at the front counter which she would use as a basis for her then new work. A bit of a Cinderella really.

The discovery of such a unique medium must have ignited in her a search for further unusual materials she could use to express her need to create lines and a textural element in her work. Teabags, old Wallpaper, Japanese paper, serviettes are to name a few, along with various other materials she’s found rummaging through recycled outlets.

It may not be the material she uses that drives her, but the processes involved in revealing the essence of what she is collecting. Whether it be the dying, drying, ripping up of teabags or the hunting and gathering of these unusual materials that she’s inspired to collect that floats her boat, she seems to embrace in her work a feeling of connectedness and completeness.

Whatever it is that flows through her so naturally, it embodies a tribal earthy feel and somewhat spiritual essence as each piece talks of a different story at a different time in her life

2 dimensional or 3 dimensional, clay or teabags, her intent is to create a visual experience that allows the viewer to connect to their own inner space of being, igniting in them the creative flame that nourishes their soul.

Sunlit Reflection (mm)

Ocean Dreaming (mm)

NEW! Charcoal Bush Dreaming
( mm)

NEW! Crative Flame 1, 2 & 3
( mm ea panel)

       
Dormant Dreaming Dormant Dreaming
         1a                             1         
(mm ea panel)

The Poem of the Punga-Line 6 (mm)