Irene Cabasa Original Artwork

Irene is an abstract artist based in Sydney, Australia. Working primarily in textured abstract painting, her practice explores themes of emotion, resilience, identity, and transformation through layered surfaces, tactile textures, and expressive mark-making.

Irene’s artistic foundation began at a young age, when she discovered her passion for drawing, painting, and singing. She continued her visual arts studies throughout high school before completing a Bachelor’s degree in Performance and Popular Music at JMC Academy in 2012. Drawing on both her formal education and independent creative practice, Irene creates intuitive works that reflect the complexity of human experience and the beauty found within imperfection.

Irene has been featured in the Spanish Contemporary Art Gallery’s limited-edition publication A Like Artist, Vol. 5. In October, she will also digitally exhibit her work at Art Shopping, Carrousel du Lourve as part of an art fair with The Circle Foundation for the Arts in Paris, France. She continues to maintain an independent practice from her home studio, with her work held by private collectors.

Irene’s practice has taken on deeper personal meaning following her breast cancer diagnosis in 2025 and the extensive treatment she continues to undergo. This experience has shaped her exploration of vulnerability, strength, resilience, and healing. Through abstraction, she seeks to translate these deeply personal experiences into layered compositions that embody both fragility and endurance, creating space for reflection, connection, and hope.

Her process is intuitive, tactile, and experimental. Irene builds her paintings through layers of paint, pastes, water, and found or repurposed materials, working with brushes, palette knives, her hands, and physical elements such as discarded acrylic skins. She is particularly drawn to dimensional materials, bold shapes, and the creation of richly textured surfaces. Through these techniques, she allows each work to evolve organically, embracing unpredictability, movement, and imperfection as essential parts of the creative process.