Art Forum: Michelle Belgiorno

Wednesday 27 Apr
12.45–1.45pm
Cell Block Theatre

Michelle Belgiorno is a Sydney based artist who works across various media including oil painting, sculpture and collaborative fabric-based installations.

A long-term interest has been the inscrutable culture of Japan, drawing on a forty-plus year engagement with the aesthetics, society and language, which are so distinct from those of Australia.

In recent times, due to Covid travel restrictions, the artist’s focus has been closer to home. The title of the exhibition, Shinrin Yoku, is a Japanese expression which translates as “Forest Bathing” or more loosely as “Nature Therapy”.

Over the past couple of years, daily walks around the foreshores of Sydney Harbour helped Belgiorno maintain wellbeing in the face of mounting Covid-induced uncertainty and lockdowns.

“I became inspired by the complexity and beauty of our natural environment; the sculptural forms, the textures, cracks and crevices, and the regenerative role of death and decay in the Australian bush.”

Some of the paintings incorporate Japanese aesthetics to simplify the density of the Australian bush and to focus on elements of interest to the artist, in particular the graceful forms of the angophora trees endemic to Sydney, the multi-coloured sandstone and the sculptural remains of burnt-out trunks.

As a director of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy the artist is keen to draw attention to our unique wildlife, increasingly threatened by climate change and human encroachment on natural habitat.

Belgiorno has been a practicing artist for 25 years. She has exhibited both in Sydney and Tokyo, and has been a finalist in the Mosman Art Prize, The Paddington Art Prize and the Portia Geach Portrait Prize. Her work is held in private collections and in the Australian War Memorial and the Cowra Regional Gallery.

Belgiorno holds a BA Fine Art in Painting from the National Art School, a BA Honours in Japanese and a Master of Commerce.

Image: Michelle Belgiorno, Angophora Arabesque, (detail) 2022, oil on prepared linen, photo: Scott Hull.