Astrid Dahl Original Artwork

I am Astrid Dahl, an Australian artist. My art study began at RMIT Australia when I was 16, and ended with a Master of Art.  I constantly experiment, and with 60 years of painting and teaching art, I feel that I am still evolving, still learning, and still in wonderment.

It is in the act of creating itself that the most excitement.

My main focus is the landscape – not in the literal or photographic sense but its poetry, its spirituality, its philosophy and its distilled abstractedness. I process, discover and redefine my life through interpretations of the land – the Mother – my beginning and my ultimate end.

Travelling through Tibet, the Thar Desert in India, the Great Sandy Desert and the Gibson Desert in Western Australia gives me the inspiration for my work. I collect fragments, such as stones, rocks, and bottling different coloured sands, sketching and using my own photography to further enrich my paintings.

In the 80s, I saw for the first time the brick red earth, the clear azure blue sky, and the sparse desert growth struggling to survive. I fell in love with the remote rawness and saw an analogy to my own life at the time. I have kept my connections with the desert country, always gathering inspiration for more works.

I think we all live in a desert and we try to populate it with our hopes and dreams, sometimes succeeding and sometimes not. Everyone’s desert is different, sometimes not of our own choosing.

The materials I use vary with each painting, and I waver between semi-abstractness and some semblance of recognition. I enjoy making each piece unique in its concept and approach. I use acrylics and combine them with oils and a variety of textures and mediums. I sometimes add gold or silver leaf, which is like painting with light. Each painting is on canvas, stretched on a wooden frame, and varnished with an artist-quality satin finish. All materials I use are artist-quality.