About the artist
Wendy McGrath-Lakeland is an Australian landscape artist- a painter, printmaker, photographer, installation artist and arts educator, living in the Noosa Hinterland of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.
Lakeland’s works are poignant, poetic and beautiful….the beauty of the making, the carefully considered choice of natural materials, where and when she chooses to install and document the work….all come from a familiarity with the physicality of the site.
(Christine James, a Canberra based painter, arts educator and writer.)
Lakeland's mediums include installations, prints, paintings and drawings, exploring landscapes through en plein air painting, research of histories, and the embedded energy of places.
I research and explore landscape sites, make plein air drawings and paintings as studies, and then develop larger works in my studio such as site-specific installations, paintings, or prints. Colour and line are major elements of my work, having a background as a designer and then majoring in printmaking, I think these important elements stay with me.
Residencies and art projects provide opportunities for new works, such as commissioned artist for Ten Days on The Island, Floating Land, Sculpture by The Sea, and Treeline, creating ephemeral works that are photographed and exhibited. Residencies from Bundanon to working in remote communities have been an important link to cultures and landscapes that energise towards creating new work.
Recent art projects include working with the University of Tasmania as an artist on the Kerry Lodge Archaeology and Art Project, with two exhibitions and a site-specific installation work for Ten Days on The Island, Tasmania.
Lakeland works from a studio on a property amid a rainforest in the Noosa hinterland, currently making series of works about the landscape, one that is so familiar and complex with abundant rainforest species and native fauna on the property.