In this extract from Artists at Home, we visit painter Zoe Young in the Southern Highlands of NSW.
Zoe Young is a painter who transforms everyday settings and objects into idyllic and evocative scenes you want to be part of.
Her work explores the musings of daily life, everyday objects,
Early years travelling around rural landscapes and overseas destinations with her family meant that she grew up observing the nuances of different cultures: the food, people and scenery.
The youngest of four siblings, she grew up in a creative and adventurous family environment; her parents worked in hospitality and managed three different hotels, including one designed by renowned Australian architect Glenn Murcutt. Constantly moving around also meant attending three different schools, which brought in excitement and adaptability.
From a young age, Zoe was encouraged to create and contribute. Family dinners were also often staff dinners, and frequently she’d sit at a corner table drawing on menus and dockets throughout the service.
Apart from travelling, making films also played a role in her early creative pursuits. She recalls that in the 1980s, her dad came back home with a big Beta camera so the kids could get creative with their own short movie productions.
She learned early on that the spirit of hospitality and the ability to create an atmosphere in a hotel or restaurant depended on a few elements put together, such as decorative details, architecture, music, pattern, scents and light, evoking different senses.
She attributes much of her aesthetic sensibility to these elements, which show up instinctively in her paintings as she translates her rich childhood memories.
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Advertise with NZME.At age 11, Zoe went to boarding school. “Creativity was my greatest ammunition against the dreaded boredom that often led to being homesick, so I kept myself incredibly productive and became the ‘go to’ artist, known for my bubble writing and cartoon characterisation of chain-smoking house mistresses,” she says.
At 17, she enrolled in Fine Arts at East Sydney Tech but felt a strong call to travel again. “I spent most of my 20s stopping and starting creative enterprises — I had a fashion label in Amsterdam, a design studio in Bangkok and a few small solo painting shows here and there,” she says.
By the time she graduated in Fine Arts with a major in Sculpture in 2011, she was 32; by then the campus had changed its name to the National Art School and become quite academic and gentrified.
Since then, Zoe has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize in 2014 and 2016. In 2018 she won the Portia Geach Memorial Award with her portrait of Bruce Beresford. She works primarily with oil painting on Belgian linen due to its inherent silk-smooth texture and longlasting qualities. She has an ability to draw the viewer in intimately, inviting them to partake in a festive atmosphere filled with nature, fresh produce, plates, cloth, wine, flowers and abundant food.
“I guess I’m trying to decipher how to live by looking backwards at my parents and forwards bringing up my kids,” she says.
Her palette consists of muted tones including greys, pale yellows, olive greens, reds, soft pinks and blacks. On a closer look, Zoe’s works reveal picture planes which remind you of modernist sculptures, as the strokes build up on the canvas revealing images which curve and block like sculpture does.
Celebrated for her unique still-life aesthetic, she considers mixing her own palette a fundamental part of the process; colour has become her way of communicating the influences and tastes she’s accumulated over time.
“For quite some time now, my work has been influenced by the naturalists, and master artist John Ruskin for his intense appreciation of nature,” she says.
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Advertise with NZME.Zoe’s studio is set up a few metres away from her home in the Southern Highlands. A shared wild, rambling garden serves as daily inspiration. The Aga stove is another favourite feature, bringing warmth on cold winter mornings when she is up early working.
Antiques inherited from her grandfather and old photos from the 1970s have become the starting point for some of her paintings. Being able to work so close to home means she can often bring paintings into the house to live with.
”Time is one of the best mediums and most under-rated in modern times; giving a work some time means it can be resolved in the blink of an eye, just over one’s shoulder, while cooking, rather than pushing it. I often let works reveal themselves and living with them while working on them is a good formula for such a process,” she says.
What’s been the best thing that’s happened to you since you started your career as an artist?
Probably the epic failures and rejection; that’s when you really take stock about what you’re doing and why you are doing it. Sometimes the rejection is political and there’s not much you can do, but when it’s just pure rejection, that catapults you to do something better or wiser. The art world is a political beast though and at times it is hard to decipher if the rejection is pure or political.
What does a typical day in your studio entail for you?
It depends on what sort of a phase I’m going through; sometimes I’m quite regimented and make myself drink green tea and prepare my brushes the night before waking up at 5am to embark on a project.
Other times, I’ll pop into town and have coffee with a friend before knuckling down to work. There’s an ebb and flow of pressure and recreation in the way I live and my studio practice is an extension of that.
Which other Australian and international female artists inspire you?
Lucy Culliton is amazing — we have very long conversations over the phone while we are both painting, so there’s big and long silences and then we’ll have a wonder and yarn about something or other.
I find inspiration in other industries, for example film producer Sue Milliken and food writer Jill Dupleix are on speed dial for advice, but more often than not, for a laugh over a funny story.
How would you describe your aesthetics at home?
Working with colour and aesthetic problems to solve all day can leave one yearning for the comfort of simplicity and clarity. I painted half my lounge navy blue last weekend, but I’m painting it white again this weekend — it was too much.
As an artist, what is the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way?
You don’t notice how hard you’re working when you’re doing what you love.
How do you unwind from a busy day?
It depends on what I’ve painted! I am very lucky as my husband, Reg, is a gardener and a cook. As much as I love cooking, I’m pretty hopeless on a regular basis, as I’m either too excited as I spent all day painting or I’m a nervous wreck because I’m on deadline.
Either way, I sit on the kitchen bench with a glass of wine and a block of cheese and chat with Reg while he cooks something delicious for the family.
How do you divide your time between being an artist and a mum?
It’s total and utter chaos but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I recently returned from a skiing holiday in Thredbo, we stayed in a little A-frame house on the mountain and I took my easel and paints — it sounds ideal, but the reality is, it was beautiful but completely exhausting.
What are your favourite travel destinations?
I’ve had studios set up in Amsterdam and Bangkok, so I enjoy the familiarity of these places and hanging out with old friends. All my siblings live overseas, and so I also travel to visit them in Prague, San Francisco, Bolzano and Phuket.
Extract from ‘Artists at Home’ by Karina Dias Pires, published by Thames & Hudson Australia, $65, available now.
