Design and Art Australia Online

Sylvia McEwan was born Sylvia Caroline Fenwick in Melbourne (Victoria) in 1944, to Hungarian parents. She completed a Diploma of Physical Education at Melbourne University in 1964, and commenced teaching in the secondary education system, chiefly in private schools including Firbank CEGGS. McEwan taught on and off for a few years after having her two daughters. She began making sculpture in the 1980s, and did not start painting seriously until the late 1990s. McEwan admits that making the switch from teaching to art making was less a conscious decision than a slow process of realising that her primary interest lies in painting. From 1982 to 1984 she studied sculpture and life drawing at the Willoughby Art Workshop in Sydney. The artist believes that her focus on life drawing during this period gave her a solid foundation for her painting.

The following year, 1985, McEwan transferred to the Kelvin Grove College of Advanced Education (now known as Queensland University of Technology) to study drawing, sculpture and painting, and graduated with a Diploma in Visual Arts in 1988. In her sculptural works, McEwan experimented with both carving stone and modelling in clay, but a year spent painting under Bill (William) Robinson was particularly valued.

McEwan experiments with colour, light and shadow. She makes use of organic shapes and lines found in nature. The artist notes: “My art resides in a realm of close tonalism which insinuates movement upon soft geometric backgrounds … My work shifts between the figurative and the abstract … My approach is to keep the subject manner and the paint as loose as possible” (Harris Courtin Gallery website).

McEwan has found inspiration in the works of New York Abstract Expressionists and the San Francisco Bay Area figurative painters of the 1950s. The artists she mentions in particular from these groups include Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Willem De Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn. McEwan’s own abstract style is expressed through watercolours, acrylics, oil pastels and graphite.

Her professional career began in 1997 with her first solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art & Design Gallery in Woolloongabba, Brisbane (QLD). Since then she has held solo exhibitions mostly in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne and in 2009 at the 9 Langton Street Gallery in Chelsea, London, UK.

In Brisbane she has shown at the Doggett Street Studio, Michel Sourgnes Fine Arts & Gallery 482, and Directorate Art spaces at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. In Sydney McEwan has held solo exhibitions at the Harris Courtin Gallery in 2001, 2003, 2004 and in 2006. Her work has also been exhibited at the Delshan Gallery in Melbourne in 2007.

In 1996 McEwan won first prize in Watercolour, at the Paddginton Art Festival, Brisbane, and in 1999 the Outstanding Modern Painting award at the Courier Mail Art Show also in Brisbane. She has exhibited as a finalist in numerous competitions including the 2008 Fleurieu Biennale in McLaren Vale South Australia, the 2007 Sunshine Coast Art Prize in Queensland, the 2007 Prometheus Art Award in Queensland, the 2005 Hutchins Art Prize for works on paper in Hobart, Tasmania, the 2004 Cromwell Art Prize in Sydney, the 2004 Biennial Ergon Energy Central Queensland Art Award at the Rockhampton Art Gallery, the 2004 and 2002 Fleurieu Prize Travelling Exhibition South Australia, the 2003 Sulman Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the 2002 Toowoomba Biennial Acquisitive Art Award & Exhibition in Queensland.

McEwan was commissioned by Mirvac to paint ten canvases for their Arbour on Grey development in Southbank, Brisbane. She has also undertaken commercial work for Sanitarium, Jennifer Coleman (Food Consultant), Panteen, Mirvac, and the Brisbane Visitors Guide.

Her work is in the Wesley Hospital, International Organisers, and KP Architects collections in Brisbane, and the Sydney West International College in Sydney. McEwan’s work is also held in private collections in the UK, USA, Germany, The Netherlands and Australia.

Since the 1980s McEwan has lived in Sydney and Brisbane. In 2010 the artist was living in Canberra, ACT.

Writers:

Sobel, Stephanie
De Lorenzo, Catherine

Date written:

2010

Last updated:

2011