Camille Serisier

In her short career, Brisbane-based artist Camille Serisier has covered serious ground – making her way up the Australian east coast and enchanting people along the way with her unique brand of art making.

Born in Wollongong, New South Wales in 1982, Serisier grew up in Sydney where she studied drawing at the prestigious Julian Ashton Art School and the National Art School. Following this early art education, she went on the move after being awarded a National Undergraduate Scholarship from the Australian National University, where she studied for her undergraduate degree, graduating with First Class Honours. This early success did not slow as she received a scholarship for the New York Studio School.

Serisier explores the relationship of humans and the environment through representations of nature in Australian culture. Looking at how this relationship manifests in some of Australia’s significant cultural repositories, Serisier visits theatre, early childhood education and other cultural mythologies in her work, extracting a narrative of exchange. She is interested in how these experiences,in early life and inherited cultural ideas, shape how we perceive the world. “It is this cultural inheritance that orients contemporary attitudes to the environment,” she says. “Chief among its effects, this heritage distances Australians from nature, rendering it merely as cause and effect, a challenge to be conquered, or as a spectacle for our passive consumption.”

2013 was a big year for Serisier, who held solo exhibitions at SLOT Space, Sydney, Inhouse ARI, Brisbane, MOP Projects, Sydney, and Level, Brisbane. Stunning watercolours reflect her background in theatrical design, from which she has derived a sophisticated understanding of space and form. Currently basing herself in Brisbane, Serisier prolifically produces works, building on and developing a distinct and refined style.

EXHIBITION 
The Wonderful Land of Oz
Thursday 6 November
Spiro Grace Art Rooms