sine macpherson artwork

siné macpherson

The subjects for Siné MacPherson's meticulously coloured canvases rarely stray far from home. This has included field guides for plants and birds, and dictionaries from her bookshelves, newspapers and even her painting apron. As she noted, her "interests lie in colour, the descriptive languages of visual phenomena, and visual systems." These interests can be solidly traced in her work as far back as the 1970s, such as Pear Box 1978, in which three painted canvas covered plastic pears are framed with a painting of the same pears. She questions how we visualise objects, what is real, what has greater visual authority? Her fascination with the 'already made' has a strong tradition in art history, becoming popular in the 1960s, it describes a way for artists to look at and engage with the stuff of everyday life.

Siné MacPherson was born in Canada, where she studied Fine Arts at the University of Saskatchewan and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. In Australia she has exhibited widely, and has been included in several important local group exhibitions, such as Luminous World - Contemporary Art from the Wesfarmers Collection, Art Gallery of WA, (national tour to 2014) and remix wa contemporary art, Art Gallery of WA, in 2011, and Systems of Nature, Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, UWA. Her paintings can be found in the collections of Wesfarmers, Art Gallery of WA, Parliament House, and the Cruthers Collection.