IN THE BEGINNING — TheresaByrnes

In the beginning of my life as a painter there was my face, I painted it when I was 13 in 1983. Self-portraiture helped me examine what it was to be human. Fascinated by life, portraiture became a lure, pulling me into life as an artist.

From 1983-6 I painted and drew portraits. From 1986-92 I painted nudes, beach and city scenes. I found myself becoming more interested in painting the blurred expressive backgrounds than the figures. From 1993-4 I made landscape based abstract paintings.

At 25, in 1995 I made my first (human scale) abstract painting. I threw my whole body into it. My grand, sweeping gesture almost sent me crashing into the painting's surface. It was instantly clear, after bold, fearless strokes in the studio that I was an abstract painter. I had found that the most powerful way to render life, it was not to copy it but to be it.

At 26, in 1996 I began using a wheelchair and many assumed I was an abstract painter because I no longer had the control to paint detail. That assumption infuriated me as it was my abstractions that were athletic and muscular.Portraitue was thousands of marks to get one resonating image. Every mark/stroke no matter how small must be free. Every stroke carries the drama and importance of an action painting.

In 1990 (at 20) I was accepted into an Aboriginal community in remote Arnhem Land, Australia, connecting me ever more strongly to the land. My Aborignal mother (Barrupu Yunnipingu) was a painter and cut off some of my hair to make a paint brush. I began to use my hair as a paint brush in 2008 and earth as pigment in 2011.

I began as an oil painter, acrylic, enamel and watercolor paint has always been in my studio for if the need should arise. 2002 until mid 2004 I painted with enamel and spray paint. In 2004 I discovered that ink and water had the same reactivity as enamel paint and it was 99.9% less toxic.

After September 11 2001 I began using trashed wood fragments to paint on. The idea that archival art materials are of importance seemed ludicrous then and now with the climate crisis.

From 2004-2021 I have mainly used ink in @ 2005 I began to incorporate printmaking in my painting, laying paper on paper, STRINGS series, fabric on paper BEINGS series 2006, hair on paper NEST series in 2009, feathers on paper SPARROW-HEART series, 2012-13 and single use plastic bags for mark making in 2019 , FRESH series and plastic bags, feathers and my hair on wood in my 2021 GRACE series and turmeric and charoal on paper and wood in my 2023 series.

During the pandemic (2020) I was commissioned to paint a series of portraits of 2 young brothers and than I did a portrait of my son, intricate yet free. Returning once again, as I do, to portraiture, it is going home to where it all began for me as an artist.I am always open to be commissioned to do portraits of children.