Fiona Lowry (born 1974, Sydney) is an Australian painter who airbrushes pale colours to portray landscapes with people in them. The landscapes are beautiful and ambiguous, provoking the dangerous side of wilderness. Lowry also paints portraits and won the 2014

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a portrait of

Penelope Seidler Penelope Alice Marjorie Seidler AM (nee Evatt, born 15 December 1938) is an Australian architect, former member of National Gallery of Australia Council, and current member of the NGA Foundation Board. She is also an accountant and director of ...

. She is represented in the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

, as well as the state galleries of Australia and in private collections.

Early life

Lowry was born in Sydney (1974) and continues to work in Sydney. As a child she continually watched people and drew. Lowry had a religious upbringing, and has told interviewers that she see the beauty and the foreboding in nature. This is reflected in her artworks. Lowry completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts, Honours, at the

Sydney College of the Arts The Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) is a contemporary art school that was a faculty of the University of Sydney from 1990 until 2017, when it became a school of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Until the end of 2019, the campus was locat ...

Career

Since 2001, Lowry has airbrushed her canvases in pale, monochromatic colours that create a sense of ambiguity with the harshness of some of her subjects. Often set in bushland/forest where historically bad events have occurred including massacres of Aboriginal people and murders, Lowry's work have a sense of danger or vulnerability. In 2010 she had her first solo exhibition in Sydney. She was represented by Gallery Barry Keldouli in Sydney until 2010. Today Lowry is represented by Martin Browne Contemporary,

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. Some of Lowry's landscapes include nude figures and in juxtapositions that are ambiguous—emotional or violent. These figures act out dramas in a modern wilderness setting. Her work's formal elements evoke beauty yet still harbour unease. Lowry has also incorporated portraiture into her work, again focusing on the psychological. Some of her figures in the landscape are portraits. In an interview Lowry noted that the

at the

Art Gallery of New South Wales The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most importa ...

was her first experience of seeing art, and she wanted to be part of it. Lowry was a finalist in 2011 and 2013, and won the portraiture prize in 2016. with a portrait of Penelope Seidler. She had seen Seidler at an art exhibition and remarked on her beaury and presence. From that incident she wanted to paint her.

Awards

Lowry was awarded the

Doug Moran National Portrait Prize The Doug Moran National Portrait Prize is an annual Australian portrait prize founded by Doug Moran in 1988, the year of Australia's Bicentenary. It is the richest portrait prize in the world with A$150,000 awarded to the winner. The prize is a ...

in 2008. The $100,000 portrait prize for her painting ''What I Assume You Shall Assume'', was a naked self-portrait set in the

Belanglo State Forest Belanglo State Forest is a planted forest, of mainly pine but some native forestry around the edges, open to the public, in the Australian state of New South Wales; its total area is about 3,800 hectares. The Belanglo State Forest is located ...

a scene of menace as the site of the backpacker murders. She was the winner of the

Fleurieu Art Prize The Fleurieu Art Prize is a non-acquisitive award, open to Australian visual artists aged 18 years and older. The ''Prize'' encompasses any two- or three-dimensional artwork submissions that follow an annual thematic concept and includes a monet ...

in 2013 for her painting ''Alone With You''. In 2013 the painting also won the Wynn Prize for landscape at the

. The painting was completed during her residency at

Arthur Boyd Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd (24 July 1920 – 24 April 1999) was a leading Australian painter of the middle to late 20th century. Boyd's work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, ...

's estate at

Bundanon Bundanon is a unique national arts organisation situated near Nowra, City of Shoalhaven, New South Wales, Australia. It was the home of the painter Arthur Boyd. Established as a national Trust in 1993, The organisation creates learning programs fo ...

that Boyd left to the nation. She was a finalist in the

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

and

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

. She was the winner of the Archibald Prize in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

for her painting ''

''.

Collections

Lowry is represented in the following collections *National Gallery of Australia *National Gallery of Victoria *National Portrait Gallery *Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

References

External links

*
Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide, Australia

Martin Browne Contemporary, Sydney, Australia

Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
images
Wilderness group exhibition, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Winner: Archibald Prize 2014 and image, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Interview: by Owen Craven, Artist Profile, Issue 26, 2014, pp. 56-64
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowry, Fiona 1974 births Living people Australian painters Australian women painters University of Sydney alumni Doug Moran National Portrait Prize winners Archibald Prize winners 21st-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian artists