Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming is a contemporary Australian artist working full time from his studio/family-home in the bush near Gundaroo about 40km from Canberra. He completed a first class honours degree in visual art at the Australian National University, receiving an Emerging Artist Support Scheme Acquisition award. His university studies involved research and development towards creating virtual reality environments with a painterly style often focused on surrealism and horror.
He is currently taking part in the Horizons Mentorship program where he has been workshopping ways of melding his two artistic practices of virtual reality and traditionally inspired oil painting. Ian Fleming exhibits his paintings nationally, including ‘introducing Ian Fleming’, Depart Gallery Sydney NSW, 2024; ‘Beyond the Front Gate’, Sutton Village Gallery NSW, 2024; and ‘Strathnairn Members Exhibition’ Canberra ACT, 2023. Ian has also completed a range of private commissions including album covers, music videos, wedding portraits, landscapes and pets.
His work can be seen on his webpage or instagram, as well as livestreams and tutorials on his YouTube channel. Ian’s practice includes artistic mentoring and support of art students in Canberra schools, as well as working with a class at one of Canberras most disadvantaged schools on a community mural.
Artwork description
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Artist Statement
My primary practice is painting both traditional oil on canvas and wielding a digital brush inside virtual reality (VR), drawing on family photographs and imagery from films, video games and art history. Within each painting my artistic objective evolves as it progresses, changing direction as the characteristics of the process and medium offers opportunities to improvise. This results in a portfolio of varied styles, with finished works often exhibiting unresolved areas that reveal and emphasise aspects of this approach. An emerging interest is exploring my families collection of Polaroid photos from their trips abroad as a basis for paintings. I’m aspiring to capture the subtle qualities of light, tone and resolution unique to that era of photography. For the Horizons project I wanted to capture something that incorporated the regional NSW focus. I chose to build a VR environment featuring vignettes within the carriages of an old fashion train travelling through country NSW, each vignettes allows me to explore a different artistic theme or style that has caught my interest, in that way the train acts as a ‘vehicle’ for my explorations. This VR work could serve as a source of reference imagery for further oil painting exploration.
Mentor: Stephen Bird
Regional Arts Development Organisation: Southern Tablelands Arts
Website: www.ianflemingart.com
YouTube: @IanFlemingArt
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