I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I study and work, the Boonwurrung and Wurundjeri peoples of the Eastern Kulin nation and pay respect to their elders, past and present. I acknowledge that this is land that was never ceded.
Ember Fairbairn’s practice is rooted in a process-oriented methodology that situates the self and the body within an expansive ecological and temporal framework, emphasising the interconnectedness of nature, belonging and the body. Through her paintings, Fairbairn creates a meditative space that transcends linear narratives and is a continual process of becoming—an exploration of transformation that connects human and ecological experience within an ever-evolving dialogue.
Ember Fairbairn holds a Masters Degree - First class honours (VCA) Awards include, Athenaeum Club Visual Arts Research Award (2020), the Gogo Art Series Award (2019), the Art150 Travelling Scholarship (2019), and finalist in Paddington( 2022), Tatiara( 2022), Omnia( 2023) and Ravenswood Art Prize for Women( 2018). Ember is included in Amber Creswell-Bell's Australian Abstract. She is held in public and private collections in Australia and abroad.
Ember is represented by Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne.
Within Fairbairn’s painting practice is an influence of nature, where she explores the metaphysical philosophy of ecology and her own body. The result is something akin to art as meditation; each consideration of process, colours, and gestures plays out until the artist finds a resolution. The works reveal themselves in active gestures or layers of paint. They reveal a belonging, connecting Fairbairn’s time in the landscape and evolving within nature. Spending time in nature becomes a meditation on being present in the moment, a feeling that comes through in her paintings, each gesture a methodology of grounding - Emma Kate Wilson
‘As a painter, there is an irresistible and magnetic pull towards the discomfort of the new, utilising paint to process and explore. Transparent layering is important to allow hints at the history of the painting actions. Rewritten, overwritten, redacted and altered, I seek to bring atmospheric aspects to the act of painting, focusing on the activation of the surface through the transcendent visual language, utilising systems of abstraction to address metaphysical issues. The resulting abstractions often reference the landscape as place, both as external and internal locations and as portals to enter into, beyond the veil of the mundane. These residual forms of painting by their nature, confront outdated ways of relating to land as commodity or mere object. The process of painting places me inside a shifting temporality. My body and psyche transmit through the hands and onto the surface. I am then free to re-create my own mythologies. These compositions reveal the conceptual and visual processes of layering: imbuing the work with a personal experience of place, dream states and the contemplation of rewritten and obscured histories.
Being born and living in Australia, any work referencing land and place will invariably evoke the complex issues surrounding place in all the ways in which it is currently unresolved in a socio-political context and my own struggle with this. It is my desire that by making art through abstracted painting, I can be part of a conceptual meeting point to create positive change in the way in which we relate to place and each other.
