Kerry McInnis

“My painting is a response to field work that I do during treks into the landscape – usually into the arid waterways of the Australian bush.

My practice is informed by daily exposure to the dry eroded banks of the Molonglo catchment where I live (in NSW), but I am also drawn to the conundrum of the dry river elsewhere in the Australian outback.

I have set up field camps in the remote gorges of Koolpin and Umbrewarra, and in Central Australia, doing forays through steep-cliffed chasms and sanded gulleys. The banks of these waterways have carved and pressed into them, the marks of life and death.

I like to interpret a “whole”, by defining a part.  I draw one element, one rock, one tree, to portray the total.  I have been painting in Ikara country during the past few years.  This is the aboriginal name for the Flinders Ranges.  Although my studio work references the plein air sketches of this area, particularly with regard to palette and atmospherics, I am hoping that the settings will transcend the specific.  It is of interest to me that “place” is subsumed by a universal awareness of where we might imagine ourselves to be” – Kerry McInnis.

Kerry McInnis’s work has been exhibited in the Archibald Prize, Portia Geach Memorial Award, NSW Parliament Plein Air Painting Prize, Rick Amor Drawing Prize, Norvill Art Prize, Kedumba Drawing Award and the Dobell Prize for Drawing. She is a past winner of the Wingecarribee and Bega Art Prizes. Her work is held by the National Library of Australia, Canberra Museum and Art Gallery, Bundanon Trust, Australian National University, Goulburn Regional Gallery and Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Kerry McInnis was the winner of the Salon des Refusés, Holding Redlich People’s Choice Award, with her portrait, Drawn In Steel (Harrie Fasher), in 2019.

Watch: Discussion on landscape painting: Kerry McInnis, Judith White and Susan Butler