Anthea Kemp questions the relationship between herself and place. Through painting she explores a place she grew up in northeast Victoria. Whilst her work gestures towards the personal, Anthea’s awareness of the land and histories confront her and instil a responsibility to research the layered history and acknowledge this land was never ceded. The place is Pbangerang country, a part of the Yorta Yorta nation. She continues researching the history and heritage of this place that coincides with her painting practice, taking aspects of the place and turning them into compositional elements and motif in her painting. Her paintings fall in between representation and abstraction. Gestures of land formations, human made introductions and animal figuration in the land are presented through an investigation of colour. As Anthea further investigates this place in her practice and she continues to return to it, new notions of nostalgia arise, complexed with confrontation.
