Amber Koroluk-Stephenson
I've been making art since I can remember. Since the early stages of my childhood, art has been just about the only thing that absorbs me fully. I remember declaring I was going to be an artist in kindergarten when all the kids were being asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. I guess that stubbornness has stuck with me. I’m very grateful that my creativity was encouraged as I was growing up. I went straight to Art School after completing year 12, having little idea of what it really meant to be an artist. I thought I might end up being an art teacher because my parents said it would provide financial security, but after my Honours year I decided I’d chase art as full time as I possibly could. Since graduating I’ve juggled my arts practice with working casual jobs in the arts including being a gallery attendant, an art retail assistant and painting tutor, as well as perusing arts grants and commissions. There’s never really been any kind of Plan B. I’m looking forward with my blinkers on, not knowing where the road will take me.
For me, art is many things. Between my practice and appreciation for art, what it means changes. And it’s often contextual. I like art that can transport me somewhere, anywhere. Sometimes in complex and profound ways, but also in simple and honest ways. I like art that makes me think and feel. And art that is playful, non-sensical and absurd. I like art that makes me smile. And art that can invoke a sense of awe or wonder.
Sometimes I like art that makes me uncomfortable or has an unnerving tension. But other times I like art purely for aesthetic reasons, and because I can imagine living with it. Its forms or texture, or because its colours seem to hum together. Other times I like art specifically because it challenges my sensibilities. Hopefully art will provide more questions than answers. I feel like good art does that.
The beauty in art is that its subjective, so there’s not necessarily a right or wrong way to go about it. And what’s considered good or bad is extremely personal – like how one might define what constitutes ‘good-bad-art’. Sometimes I feel like less in more, and other times my inner-maximalist revels in things being a little bit too much. I see art as way to engage with thoughts and feelings in ways that, perhaps, words cannot. What draws me in is often intuitive. An invisible spark that ignites something in me.
My most memorable art experience challenged my senses and understanding of what art could be. During my Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, in 2016, a fellow artist recommended I go Tino Sehgal’s exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, intentionally giving me as little information as possible. As I approached entrance, the invigilator asked, “What is the Riddle?”. “The riddle?” I asked hesitantly “…the riddle is the rhyme!”. Seemingly unlocking a kind of secret code for ‘choose your own adventure’, I was directed through the gallery towards a long corridor that disappeared into darkness. Slowly edging myself towards the end, I felt a room opening to the left in which I could hear a soft chanting sound. Unable to see anything, I attempted to locate the sound with my arms outstretched, aimlessly following it for what felt like five or so minutes. The chanting slowly escalated into a disorienting rhythmic hum. Gradually, my eyes adjusted to reveal the faintest silhouettes moving in space. Upon discovering that I had been following performers, intentionally guiding visitors through the space through song, sent me into sensory overloaded. Overwhelmed, I began to weep. Not tears of joy or sorrow, but perhaps the closest I have felt to any kind of spiritual high.
I first learnt about Sawtooth in my latter part of my undergraduate studies. Since then, I have always tried to stop into the gallery when I’m visiting Launceston. In 2014 I presented a series of works of paper for a solo show at Sawtooth, and in 2019 I included painted works in a curated group show alongside several other local artists. There aren’t enough platforms for artists, curators, and the community of art enthusiasts to connect, learn and share. I see Sawtooth as an important platform for the arts in the heart is Tasmania’s creative and cultural landscape.
Biography
Amber Koroluk-Stephenson is a visual artist, facilitator and educator based in Huon Valley in southern lutruwita/Tasmania. Working across painting, sculpture and collage, she balances the banal with the strange to create slippages within everyday fantasies. Informed by an ongoing fascination with the intersections between natural and built environments, history and popular culture, Amber’s practice examines the illusory nature, value and significance of identity, place and belonging, and ways cultural significance is constructed and exchanged, but also sometimes lost.