Sarah Tomasetti

b. 1968

Sarah Tomasetti is highly regarded for her luminous fresco paintings and installations. She has gained substantial knowledge and training in the traditional methods of fresco, using materials that have been employed since antiquity. The fresco surfaces that form the basis of her work are made on a wall constructed from lime putty mortar and then detached by means of a cloth embedded early in the process. Landscape images are then brushed drawn and incised, tracings of stone into a surface itself returning to stone. Detachment and the addition of staining and encaustic wax reveal the internal structure of the fresco skin, thus embedding a sensed fragility in the substrate of the work. These landscapes seek to explore our shifting relationship with the natural world in an atmosphere of contemporary unease.

Sarah Tomasetti graduated from RMIT University and La Trobe University, Melbourne with graduate diplomas in Fine Art and Italian Studies in 1994. After graduating, Sarah undertook an internship in fresco painting at the Laboratorio per Affresco di Vainella in Italy and, on returning to Australia, completed a Masters in Fine Art at RMIT University. She has undertaken further residencies in China, Fiji, Italy and the USA and has numerous solo and group exhibitions to her name. Winner of the acquisitive John Leslie Art Prize at the Gippsland Art Gallery in 2020, Sarah also has work represented in a number of private and public collections including Artbank, Macquarie Bank, BHP Billiton, National Australia Bank and Grafton, Tamworth and Muswellbrook Regional Galleries.

Sarah is a lecturer in Fine Art at RMIT University and has recently completed a doctoral project entitled Mnemonic Mountain, looking at the way the mountain imaginary co-creates the way remote regions are traversed and depicted. In response she developed the fresco skin as a fluid sculptural form responsive to cycles of land formation and disintegration.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

2023

2018

2014

In Blog

Pippin Drysdale, Jennifer Keeler-Milne, Janet Luxton and Sarah Tomasetti – Finalists in the 2022 Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize.

Sarah Tomasetti  Incoming Snows (Uttarakhand Series)  2022  oil on Roman black fresco plaster  83x150cm   Congratulations to artists Pippin Drysdale, …

Read More

Sarah Tomasetti – Finalist in the Gosford Art Prize 2021

Image: Sarah Tomasetti  From Balpatta IV  2021  oil and incision on fresco plaster with muslin, mounted on stretched canvas  145 …

Read More

HOLDING GROUND #savearthursseat

The work of 76 leading contemporary artists comes together in HOLDING GROUND, an online art exhibition fundraiser to help stop …

Read More

Dianne Fogwell – ‘Prescience’ Exhibition at Geelong Gallery

Image above: Dianne Fogwell  Prescience  2023  linocut and woodcut  4,500 x 145 cm  – installation at Geelong Gallery Congratulations to …

Read More

Raymond Arnold Highly Commended & Rodney Pople a Finalist in the 2024 Glover Prize

Image above: Raymond Arnold Congratulations to Raymond Arnold, who has been Highly Commended in the 2024 Glover Prize, and to …

Read More

The 2024 Palmer Sculpture Biennial

Image above: Greg Johns  The Kiss (Buried Alive)  2022-23  Corten steel  140 x 486 x 18cm “Congratulations to Greg Johns …

Read More

Gallery News – When one door closes, another one opens…

The three adjoining properties which comprise the Australian Galleries Sculpture Park in Porcupine Ridge are now on the market. The …

Read More

Marina Strocchi – Featured in The Art of Healing magazine

Image above: Marina Strocchi  Dusk in the Hills  2023  acrylic on linen  60 x 93 cm Marina Strocchi’s insightful writing …

Read More

Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe 2024

Image above: Greg Johns  Sit Down Fella (Contemplative)  2023  Corten steel and bronze  260 cm high To view a selection …

Read More

Barbie Kjar – Winner of the 2024 Adelaide Perry Prize for Drawing

Image above: Barbie Kjar and her winning work No Expectations  2024 Photograph by Louisa Chircop Congratulations to Barbie Kjar, Winner …

Read More

David Frazer ‘All That You’ve Loved’ Exhibition at Trinity College

‘David Frazer is primarily a graphic artist, a printmaker, who in his work creates a little microcosm, or a convincing …

Read More

Simon Normand – Exhibition Reviews and Interviews – The Age, ABC Radio & Nikkei Asia

Image above: Simon Normand  Map – Australia  2023  acrylic on canvas and mixed media  145 x 170 cm  Simon Normand’s …

Read More

Michael Buzacott – SLOT Window Gallery 2024

Image above: Michael Buzacott  Olympia  2024  steel  199 x 130 x 69 cm   SLOT is an independent window gallery …

Read More