Based in Meanjin / Brisbane, Tiel has been a practicing artist for 17 years, with a career in Arts and Education for over 25 years. Majoring in printmaking at QUT in the early 90s, she then went on to have a successful career in graphic design and arts education in both Queensland and Victoria. Tiel now works as a full-time artist, painting, as well as exploring other media such as textiles and ceramics.
Tiel manipulates surfaces by adding and removing marks to reflect seasonal, cyclical and environmental changes. She focuses on intricacies of the landscape that can only be seen by immersing herself into an area; she then captures the essence and mood of being within a place, whilst appreciating the constant impermanence of life.
Although she continues to explore her natural surroundings within her hometown of Brisbane, Tiel and her family also regularly visit the beaches and hinterland of Northern NSW, particularly in the Tweed and Byron Shires – exploring the physical journey of being within a place that can provoke memories, mapping points and connections. Expressing sensations of how nature impacts our emotions, she often investigates the Japanese, Buddhist ideas of ‘mono no aware’ – the awareness that everything in existence is temporary. The expression of air, water, earth, fire, smell, sound and touch collide onto one surface where the audience can see all these layers. Tiel works with a variety of media, including Japanese paper and threads and her own etchings and collagraphs. After collaborating with ceramic artists over the years, she has recently begun experimenting with clay – another medium to incorporate in her practice.
“In the moment I’m investigating nature, memory, ageing, cycles, topography, place, impermanence and substance. The works chosen for this show cross over two different surfaces — ceramic and wood — both coming from the earth. My connection to the land is often expressed through a magnified view of a walk or a moment spent within a landscape. Attention is often towards the ground on which I walk and how the light changes elements on different surfaces. I collect remnants of trees and sea life, which I then photograph and sketch to record the moment. It is the fragility of the natural environment in which we live that often saddens me as well as invokes me to make the visual response.” - Tiel Seivl-Keevers.
