Romeo – 9×9 oil on dibond (please excuse cropping and photography by me)
This particular art work by Natasha Bieniek caught my attention during our visit at the Dianne Tanzer gallery. At first glance, this 2015 work was a photograph but as I took a closer look, it’s actually a 9x9cm oil painting called Romeo.
Archibald and Wynne finalist and winner Natasha Bieniek works are described as created with “meticulous precision”. Her schooling at Florence’s Accademia d’Arte, inspired her contemporary take on historical painting traditions of illuminated manuscripts and miniature portraits of the 16th century.
Romeo explores this relationship of human beings in the natural world while also being consumed by technology, thus the size of the painting that translates to the size of an iPad or smartphone. According to Bieniek herself, her paintings create this sense of “melancholia, uneasiness and restlessness that harmonise elements of beauty”.