Tony Windberg, Adrift IV (Torndirrup), 2024, mixed media, 40.5 x 51cm
The slow drift of continents and the rise and fall of seas are revealed in poetically rendered ancient landscapes that suggest timelines greater than ours. Tony Windberg builds layers of earth pigments which are meticulously engraved into then once again eroded, recalling geological processes and worlds past.
'Australia and Antarctica were once joined.
The story of the collision of these two continental plates is revealed within the folded and intruded rocks of the Albany coast in Western Australia.
This is a tale of a world in constant slow motion and state of flux told in timelines far greater than ours. Sea levels rise and fall, lands collide and separate.'
Tony Windberg echoes metamorphic geological processes to create artworks that are a convergence of approaches: realism with abstraction, detail with suggestion, traditional techniques with unconventional materials. Surfaces are scarred, earth pigments are layered then eroded through a mix of meticulous and brutal methods from engraving to sanding. Imagery is submerged and chemically altered. Exposed are landscapes of stone, seemingly permanent yet geologically fleeting, revealing a world constantly on edge.
Tony Windberg was born in Melbourne, Victoria, in 1966. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) from Curtin University in 1986, with a major in painting. Since his first solo exhibition in 1989, he has held numerous solo shows and exhibited in prestigious national and state group exhibitions. Tony's artwork has won numerous awards and is represented in private, public and corporate collections including Artbank, Janet Holmes á Court Collection, Kerry Stokes Collection, Curtin University, The University of Western Australia, St. John of God Health Care, and in the National Collection of the Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award in Grafton, NSW.
