Fiona lowry biography

Born 1974, Sydney, New South Wales.
Fiona Lowry is an Australian painter who airbrushes pale colours to portray landscapes with people in them.
Fiona Lowry's artworks are contemporary renderings of conventional portraiture and landscape painting.

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Fiona Lowry

By Owen Craven

| July 16, 2021

Owen Craven spoke with the painter Fiona Lowry about the animated place of the Australian landscape, airbrushing, and her long, polyvalent titles. Now, 3:33 Art Projects is delighted to be exhibiting an exhibition of highly acclaimed artists Fiona Lowry featuring new works. This will mark Fiona's first solo Sydney exhibition in 3 years. To celebrate, we share Craven and Lowry's conversation, which remains an insight into Lowry's new works, as well.

Fiona Lowry’s artworks are contemporary renderings of conventional portraiture and landscape painting. Although she cites locations such as Belanglo State Forest and loosely references actual events including the Ivan Milat ‘backpacker’ murders and the infamous Ned Kelly crimes, Lowry’s airbrush technique depicts the sites of these histories through somewhat abstracted, hazy aesthetics. This is part of the paradox of her work – it is as much about formal qualities and beauty as it is about the evocation of impending doom or unease. There is a seductive weightlessness to

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Fiona Lowry Penelope Seidler

Fiona Lowry first saw architect Penelope Seidler about six years ago at a gallery opening. ‘I was really struck by her beauty and her presence and asked someone who she was. I decided then that I would like to paint her,’ says Lowry, who uses an airbrush and a limited palette of soft, pastel colours to create her paintings.

‘It is important to me when I am making a work that I take the subject to a place that has memory and history attached to it because I am interested in exploring the subject’s interaction with that landscape. We went to Penelope’s iconic house in Killara, which she designed with her late husband Harry Seidler in the 1960s. It’s an incredible space architecturally but it is also loaded with history and memories of life very well lived.

‘We spent some time in the bush at the back of the property looking at the waterfall. At one point, Penelope looked back at the house towering over us and reflected that it had been some time since she had seen it from this angle. It was that reflection that I wanted to explore with this portrait.

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Solo Exhibition2016Out in the night Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
2015Pink Frost Martin Browne Contemporary
2014new paintings Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
2012I have forgotten who I am Melbourne Art Fair
Gliding over all Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
2010new work Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide
I loved you yesterday Gallery Barry Keldoulis
2008I act as the tongue of you Gallery Barry Keldoulis
2006I’m having dreams about you Gallery Barry Keldoulis
2005Left behind Gallery Barry Keldoulis
2004Executioners Drop Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Sydney
2002aaaxxx Firstdraft gallery, Sydney

Group Exhibition2016Painting, More Painting, Melbourne Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Road Trip Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane
2015Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize National Art school, Darlinghurst
Martin Browne at Sydney Contemporary Carriage works
Sulman prize Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
2014Tattersalls Landscape award (winner) Tattersalls club, Brisbane
Sulman prize (highly commended) Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Archiba