Seabastian Toast

Sebastian Toast The Forest Will Eat Itself (2019) Oil on Canvas Oak frame 122x91cm $2800

Artist statement
I am increasingly interested in the very act of looking and attempting to record this process through paint. Perception is not fixed, and, like shifting conditions in light, focus and atmosphere, I chase the ethereal to gain a greater understanding of how we exist.  Process driven, painting for me has never been about making decorative pictures, but rather a way of learning to see.  I am interested in creating paintings that encourage the viewer to take time to look, to slow time.  In a world where things are often increasing in speed, stopping to spend time with an artwork seems to be one of the most important things we can do.


Bio
Seabastion Toast lives and works on the North Coast NSW. Among her achievements she recently won the $10,000 Darcy Doyle Art Prize for the second time, the Hangers Award and Highly Commended at the 2019 Glover Prize and is regularly a finalist in many prominent awards including the Doug Moran, Lester, Hurford, Heysen, EMSLA and Sunshine Coast Art Prizes. Co-existing with her very active outdoors lifestyle, Toast's paintings embody a very physical approach to the subject, with layers built up, scraped down and obscured. Toast has a degree in Fine Art from SCU including a very influential exchange to the Pratt Institute in New York.
She also loves teaching, running up mountains, surfing, her dog, Audrey, and horses.
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