Anthea Kemp would like to respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which she lives and works, and returns to; Yorta Yorta, Waveroo, Wurundjeri and Bunurong people. Anthea pays her respect to elders past and present. Anthea would like to acknowledge that people have been making art on these lands for thousands and thousands of years before colonisation.
Anthea Kemp creates paintings that represent her fascination of nature and her creative process derived from nature and place. Through these paintings, Anthea captures a holistic approach, allowing her intuition to form a process to balance compositions inspired from visuals found in nature. The decisions that arise are an outcome of her attempts to distil the interplay between light and shadow, the graceful form of a donkey orchid, ot the expressive lines found within trees. Simultaneously, she embraces the sometimes-unpredictability of the painting medium as she allows feeling through painting.
This exploratory process enables the boundaries between representation and abstraction to shift or co-exist, resulting in artworks that remain open ended or in a state of transition. Working on multiple paintings concurrently in her studio establishes a connection between certain works, evident in the shared decisions regarding marks, colours, and motifs. This continuity allows an energetic flow from one painting to the next, over time and research, highlighting the iterative process she employs to bring each piece to resolution.
Anthea Kemp has been exhibiting since 2015, showcasing her work in solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Regional Victoria, and Sydney. Additionally, her artwork has been included in group exhibitions across various locations, including Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, and regional Victoria. Noteworthy exhibition spaces include Blindside ARI, LON Gallery, Saint Cloche, Benalla Art Gallery, and Wangaratta Art Gallery. Anthea has also been recognized as a finalist in the Macquarie Group Emerging Artist Prize (2016), the Atheneum Club Visual Research Award (2019), and the Len Fox Award at Castlemaine Art Museums (2022). In 2021, she was awarded the Macfarlane Fund Kyneton Residency. Anthea's work can be found in the collection of the Wangaratta Art Gallery, as well as in private collections.