Canberra
I’m Katie Cirjak. I am an abstract artist living in Canberra, ACT.
I am a self-taught artist and rely heavily on my intuition to create my work.
I am largely inspired by organic shapes and patterns in nature, and I enjoy the challenge of re-imagining nature from a unique perspective.
Prize Finalist
Artworks: 7
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Painting is where Katie Cirjak can express parts of myself which words are inadequate for. Her compositions are driven by intuition and inspired by nature.
She has always loved being immersed in nature. Just like children, she will often come home with pockets full of leaves and random rocks which she then uses for reference in her art pieces. And she will always stop and admire a beautiful sunset!
“The beauty of being an abstract artist is the opportunity to challenge myself to evoke a feeling, an emotion, or a sense of curiosity within the viewer purely through the use of shapes and colours.”
Katie’s children are her harshest critics, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her studio is set up right next to the lounge room where she is always immersed in the mess, the noise, and the conversation – and the familiy mini lop bunny is generally by her feet and snoozing while she paints.
A self-taught artist, Katie has tried just about every creative thing she could get her hands on. Jewellery-making, sewing, clay work, and everything in between. Having learnt such a wide variety of skills has been invaluable because she has used these skills to make art pieces which are very personal and something which draws you in closer because you want to know how it was made. She loves to cut up raw canvas and sew it back together to create an interesting surface. The stitching in the canvas will often tell her how to start the composition – the surface and the composition develop their own relationship, and her job becomes quite simple from that point because she is simply there to guide that relationship into something special.
By day she works in finance and by night she paints. The two seem like they are worlds apart but they actually complement each other so well. Having a creative mind means Katie can look at problems in her finance job from a unique perspective, and having an analytical mind means she can look at the painting quite objectively and work through creative blocks logically. Who says you can’t do both!
Katie is also a finalist in the 2022 Art Lovers Australia Prize.
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