Featured Artist: Liz Zylinski

My art career took a while to get started. At school it was a choice between maths and graphic art, and maths won and with awful teaching I dropped out of ‘fine’ art. Not much artistic happened until around 2000 when I discovered stamping and paper crafts. For several years I ran a business importing handmade papers and running papercraft classes at craft shows. That was fun and led me to experiment – paper, acrylic, inks, dyes, felting, 3D fabric/paper creations and all sorts of mixed media. My creativity re-emerged!
At this time I was living at Hanging Rock and was accepted into The Gallery at Mt Macedon as a contributor and over the years exhibited in various local shows. In 2008 I completed a Certificate of Visual Arts at the CAE and was introduced to oils, which have been my preferred medium ever since. The following year I joined the Woodend Art Group and thanks to Catherine Tait, learned that I can draw (after years of saying I couldn’t even draw stick figures!).
Art then took a back seat for a number of years as life got in the way, and I moved back to Melbourne for family reasons. In 2017 life began to re-emerge and I enrolled in Studio Art classes with Marco Corsini at Melbourne Art Class (MAC). On and off for the last 5 years I’ve been tutored by Marco, who has encouraged and pushed me to explore my art, to develop my style, to experiment and to just keep painting!
In 2022 I held my first solo exhibition, at The Old Auction House in Kyneton. It was a stressful, exciting and wonderful experience with several sales. During 2022 I also exhibited in various group shows including Camberwell Art Show, the Moonee Valley Art show and with the Contemporary Art Society and Melbourne & Victoria Artists group.
I have three passions in life – art, travel and cycling. This year I have retired so I can concentrate on all three. Upcoming exhibitions include the Melbourne Flower and Garden Show, CAS A4 Exhibition at Herring Island, the Bendigo Easter Art Show, and of course, the HBAS 5x7 exhibition (all on through April).
My work varies from impressionist through abstracted impressionism to purely abstracted. I enjoy exploring colour and technique, and am often distracted from what I planned to paint and create something completely different. Most recently I’ve been working with a palette knife rather than brushes onto unstretched linen. Although completely flat, the technique gives a beautiful ‘texture’ to the work which can’t be produced with a brush, and using transparent colours there’s a real vibrancy to the resulting painting. More recently I’ve been working with this technique in monochrome to further explore pattern and form.
The works I’ve attached are a range created over the last few years.
Still Life with Orange was the first work I created at MAC back in 2017. As is my way, it was intended to be a ‘normal’ still life. But as the ‘face’ emerged in the glass bottle, the painting veered a little towards surrealism. I love its quirkiness and vibrant colours.
Bushfire, Hanging Rock, Hillsides and Red Hill were all repurposing of earlier unsuccessful paintings. Some of the under paintings were oil, others acrylic. I love the way the texture of the underlying works comes through and adds to the final result.
The World Weeps was my response to the outbreak of war in the Ukraine. When this painting sells, the proceeds with be donated to the International Red Cross.
Polyphony Magenta and Polyphony Charcoal are both palette knife works on unstretched linen, part of my current series of paintings. I’m also working on a series of small lino cuts of interesting buildings, which is a fun change from the palette knife.
When I’m not painting, you’ll probably find my on my bicycle. Or travelling through Europe. Or both. You can find my work at #lizzed_artist on Instagram, or The Adventures of Betty the Brompton on Facebook Click on the following link to see more: https://tinyurl.com/5e2za2hw
At this time I was living at Hanging Rock and was accepted into The Gallery at Mt Macedon as a contributor and over the years exhibited in various local shows. In 2008 I completed a Certificate of Visual Arts at the CAE and was introduced to oils, which have been my preferred medium ever since. The following year I joined the Woodend Art Group and thanks to Catherine Tait, learned that I can draw (after years of saying I couldn’t even draw stick figures!).
Art then took a back seat for a number of years as life got in the way, and I moved back to Melbourne for family reasons. In 2017 life began to re-emerge and I enrolled in Studio Art classes with Marco Corsini at Melbourne Art Class (MAC). On and off for the last 5 years I’ve been tutored by Marco, who has encouraged and pushed me to explore my art, to develop my style, to experiment and to just keep painting!
In 2022 I held my first solo exhibition, at The Old Auction House in Kyneton. It was a stressful, exciting and wonderful experience with several sales. During 2022 I also exhibited in various group shows including Camberwell Art Show, the Moonee Valley Art show and with the Contemporary Art Society and Melbourne & Victoria Artists group.
I have three passions in life – art, travel and cycling. This year I have retired so I can concentrate on all three. Upcoming exhibitions include the Melbourne Flower and Garden Show, CAS A4 Exhibition at Herring Island, the Bendigo Easter Art Show, and of course, the HBAS 5x7 exhibition (all on through April).
My work varies from impressionist through abstracted impressionism to purely abstracted. I enjoy exploring colour and technique, and am often distracted from what I planned to paint and create something completely different. Most recently I’ve been working with a palette knife rather than brushes onto unstretched linen. Although completely flat, the technique gives a beautiful ‘texture’ to the work which can’t be produced with a brush, and using transparent colours there’s a real vibrancy to the resulting painting. More recently I’ve been working with this technique in monochrome to further explore pattern and form.
The works I’ve attached are a range created over the last few years.
Still Life with Orange was the first work I created at MAC back in 2017. As is my way, it was intended to be a ‘normal’ still life. But as the ‘face’ emerged in the glass bottle, the painting veered a little towards surrealism. I love its quirkiness and vibrant colours.
Bushfire, Hanging Rock, Hillsides and Red Hill were all repurposing of earlier unsuccessful paintings. Some of the under paintings were oil, others acrylic. I love the way the texture of the underlying works comes through and adds to the final result.
The World Weeps was my response to the outbreak of war in the Ukraine. When this painting sells, the proceeds with be donated to the International Red Cross.
Polyphony Magenta and Polyphony Charcoal are both palette knife works on unstretched linen, part of my current series of paintings. I’m also working on a series of small lino cuts of interesting buildings, which is a fun change from the palette knife.
When I’m not painting, you’ll probably find my on my bicycle. Or travelling through Europe. Or both. You can find my work at #lizzed_artist on Instagram, or The Adventures of Betty the Brompton on Facebook Click on the following link to see more: https://tinyurl.com/5e2za2hw