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
Sarah Tomasetti Incoming Snows (Uttarakhand Series) 2022 oil on Roman black fresco plaster 83x150cm Congratulations to artists Pippin Drysdale, …
Image: Sarah Tomasetti From Balpatta IV 2021 oil and incision on fresco plaster with muslin, mounted on stretched canvas 145 …
The work of 76 leading contemporary artists comes together in HOLDING GROUND, an online art exhibition fundraiser to help stop …
Martin King ledger of the lost years ‘24 and ‘25′ N.D graphite, watercolour and gouache on drafting film and paper …
Image above: Dianne Fogwell Prescience 2023 linocut and woodcut 4,500 x 145 cm – installation at Geelong Gallery Congratulations to …
Image above: Raymond Arnold Congratulations to Raymond Arnold, who has been Highly Commended in the 2024 Glover Prize, and to …
Image above: Greg Johns The Kiss (Buried Alive) 2022-23 Corten steel 140 x 486 x 18cm “Congratulations to Greg Johns …
The three adjoining properties which comprise the Australian Galleries Sculpture Park in Porcupine Ridge are now on the market. The …
Image above: Marina Strocchi Dusk in the Hills 2023 acrylic on linen 60 x 93 cm Marina Strocchi’s insightful writing …
Image above: Greg Johns Sit Down Fella (Contemplative) 2023 Corten steel and bronze 260 cm high To view a selection …
Image above: Barbie Kjar and her winning work No Expectations 2024 Photograph by Louisa Chircop Congratulations to Barbie Kjar, Winner …
‘David Frazer is primarily a graphic artist, a printmaker, who in his work creates a little microcosm, or a convincing …
Image above: Simon Normand Map – Australia 2023 acrylic on canvas and mixed media 145 x 170 cm Simon Normand’s …