Sharon Lee TOGETHER
sharonleeartist.blogspot.com

A childhood on Bougainville, PNG, followed by a move to Queensland in 2000, has shaped Sharon’s profound appreciation for nature’s forms, lines, and colors.

 

For over a decade, Sharon operated an art supply shop at the Brisbane Institute of Art and an artist’s retreat in the Somerset Shire; these ventures shaped her understanding of art materials.

 

Completing a Certificate of Fine Arts, and a Diploma of Visual Arts, influenced her use of technique. Intaglio, Lino, mono, and screen printing, have influenced the way Sharon approaches line, composition, design, and color. Learning the processes used in sculpture, ceramics, and jewellry-making has contributed to the way she processes ideas and expresses spatial form.

 

However, Max Ernst (1891 - 1976) shaped her conceptual approach. Ernst said, ‘An artist must have one eye on the outer world while the other eye looks towards the inner world. ’And it’s with this in mind that Sharon creates multi-layered paintings, evocative of the landscape and wildlife - accompanied by a troublesome idea.

 

In this body of works titled TOGETHER, Sharon uses environmental storytelling-combining birds and children-to question: When will we accept the symbiotic relationship between nature, humans, and the environs, and that we are all the same when threatened by catastrophic conditions?

 

Sharon’s works ask: If birds, animals, and plants were priceless treasures, perhaps we would treat them and the ecosystem with more consideration? Perhaps if we considered other species as being as valuable to us as our own children, we would apportion them more value—more care?
 

Perhaps if we looked at nature’s patterns for inspiration, behaviour for knowledge, and beauty to fortify our humanity, we would treat our native flora and fauna with respect and nurtured it as art.

 

The TOGETHER concept stemmed from Sharon’s children expressing their reluctance to have children in such a troubled world. She combined this with her observation that the bird population was in decline.

 

Using photographs of her own children's bodies combined with birds, Sharon questions the deadly sins created by environmental greed, mismanagement, and ignorance. Insecticides, pesticides, deforestation, urban sprawl, mono-cultures, being just a few.