About the Artist

STELLA CLARKE

Master of Visual Arts

Phone: 0475521501

ARTIST BIO

Art and Nature, Landscape to Earthscape

Stella Clarke is a British-Australian landscape artist who creates impactive artworks that draw the viewer in, inviting a response to the character of various Victorian landscape environments. These are located on the coast or in the central highlands, where the artist is based. Stella has a record of gallery representation and exhibitions, in Melbourne, Geelong, and regionally. In response to the intensifying climate crisis and since the Black Summer bushfires, Stella has shifted the focus of her landscape work toward an informed environmental awareness. She now lives in Ballarat, an old gold-rush town in Victoria, and an hour or so from Melbourne by train. For the artist, this is a fascinating and inspiring place to create, not only for the beauty of surrounding landscapes, but also for the arena of struggle in nature, and the historic layering that becomes evident. The region's particular characteristics represent an interesting challenge to interpretation via the artist's use of materials and unique studio process.

Stella Clarke was recently awarded a Commonwealth-funded research degree in visual arts. Her thesis, ‘Landscape to Earthscape: Practice and Aesthetics in a Time of Environmental Crisis’ asked how contemporary landscape art can address environmental crisis. Embedded in current eco-centric thought and art, this research included an exhibited body of artworks characterized as ‘earthscapes’, rather than landscapes in a traditional sense. Her focus was upon using sustainable art practices, working on paper with charcoal and earth pigments, and paying close attention to her bushland locality as an ecological, living entity. Via an innovative approach to the landscape genre within the emerging context of the environmental humanities, this work reimagined nature-based art at the level of materials, perspective, and composition.

Stella is now exploring new ways to build on this work, seeking out creative avenues that offer opportunity to contemplate and connect with our shared habitat.

Visual Arts Education:

2024 Master of Visual Arts by Research, Federation University
2022 Research Integrity Training Course
2021 National Art School (Drawing Methodologies, The Process of Painting)

Selected Recent Solo Exhibitions:

2024 'Landscape to Earthscape', Post Office Gallery, Ballarat.
2019 'On Bass Strait', Metropolis Gallery, Geelong.
2018 'New Coastal Works', Metropolis Gallery, Geelong
2016 'Ocean Story, Qdos Gallery, Lorne.

Recent Group Exhibitions:

2025 The Flanagan Art Prize
2024 Lethbridge Art Prize, Salon des Refuses
2022 John Villiers Outback Art Prize
2021 'Nature Works', Art Gallery of Ballarat, Backspace
2021 Lethbridge 2000 Small Scale Art Award
2021 Bushfire Benefit Exhibition, Bullarto Gallery
2020 Summer Salon, Metropolis Gallery
2017 Flanagan Art Prize
2015 Flanagan Art Prize

Selected Grants and Awards:

2024 Master of Visual Arts by Research and Exhibition
2023 Special Commendation for Excellence, Visual Arts Thesis Presentation, 'Connecting Minds and Communities', Graduate Research Conference, Federation University
2022 Commonwealth and Australian Government Research Training Programme, Post Graduate Research Scholarship
2020 Arts Council of Australia Resilience Grant

Art Media:

LANDSCAPE TO EARTHSCAPE - Federation University Australia
'Nature Works, A Meeting of Minds', Times News Group
'The Art Gallery of Ballarat Opens New Exhibition, Nature Works', The Courier
'Looking to the Natural Landscape for Inspiration', Times News Group
'Hidden Gems Shine in Beaufort', Times News Group
Interview, 'Mornings with Gavin McGrath', ABC Radio
'Stella Clarke at Qdos', Surf Coast Times
'Waves of Creativity', The Geelong Advertiser
'Postcards', Channel 9
'Art Nation', ABC