Daine Singer
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Kirsty Budge

New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist Kirsty Budge, represented by Daine Singer

Kirsty Budge

Kirsty Budge’s paintings combine deep introspection, external observation and an interest in psychoanalysis and philosophy that embraces the richness of the world. They are a complex and ambiguous mix of figuration and abstraction referencing nature, connectivity, eerie repetitions and a quest for meaning.


Budge embraces intuitive painting methods that are steeped in a ritualistic daily practice and a faith in the transcendental nature of this process. This embodied methodology mirrors a complex inner geography within the paintings and an elaborate scaffolding of the psyche which can take imaginative leaps and emerges with a strange offbeat beauty. The language of image, symbol and feeling combined with acute exploration in tone and varied painting techniques creates a liminal space that operates as an exploration of realms of possibility.

In Budge’s process, the removal of paint is equal to its application. Layering and excavation are vital to the construction of the composition, as forms that initially appear to be at the forefront of the work are actually exposed remnants of the past underpainting. “It's important to me to make paintings that reference their own making in order to initiate a non-linear narrative, like a field of broken time. My work acts as some kind of connective tissue between the past and the present as well as a paradoxical intention to transcend both.”

SELECTED WORKS