Oil Painting
Claudio Kirac
Claudio Kirac is a contemporary artist exploring concepts of nostalgia, harmony, memory, shared experience and joy through his works.
Artist Profile
Claudio Kirac is a contemporary artist exploring concepts of nostalgia, harmony, memory, shared experience and joy through his works. These concepts are explored through both abstract landscape and character-based works that use bold colour, texture and laying to evoke emotion.
Kirac lives on works on the Gold Coast, Australia on the lands of the Kombumerri families of the Yugambeh Language Region. He is known for his multi-disciplinary approach to practice, working across painting, design, photography and installation.
With his head in the clouds and two feet planted firmly on the ground, Kirac constantly investigates the crossover between analogue and digital processes, contemporary art and popular culture.
His career spans more than 25 years with his work in the collections of HOTA Home of the Arts, The National Library of Australia, the NYC State Library and Louis Vuitton Asia Pacific, as well as private collections around Australia and Canada. Most recently, Kirac has been named as a finalised in the Harden Landscape Prize (2024) and The Darling Portrait Prize (2024), with his work currently on show at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
Artist Interview
What medium do you work with, and why have you chosen them?
My practice is currently focussed on developing mixed media works exploring shared experience, nostalgia, harmony and equilibrium, realising these themes as both character-based and abstract landscapes. I've always been a mixed media painter, I like the versatility working across media allows.<br><br> These artworks are an intimate expression of the solace I find in the creative process and are a tribute to the transformative power of art, reflecting my hope for a harmonious and balanced future.
How does your artwork get from initial concept to exhibition stage?
Recollection, memory and nostalgia are driving themes evident in my character-based artworks. Drawing from pop culture icons that have shaped my life from childhood to fatherhood, each piece carries personal significance and tells a relatable visual narrative. My abstract works also emerge from a place of nostalgia and reflection, where instinctive use of colour and gestural mark-making manifest as abstracted landscapes.<br><br> The creation process can take a day or months. I like to let the work percolate – I paint and then step back and sometimes revist a work after weeks or months. Sometimes it's done, sometimes it's not.
Can you tell us a little more about your creative working environment/studio?
I work out of a factory space in Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast, just around the corner from home and also nearby where I grew up.
Career Highlights
- Finalist, Daring Portrait Prize 2024
- JUMBLED Art Superstar 2024
- Finalist, Harden Landscape Prize 2024
