Stephen Pleban
- 1 day ago
- 1 min read
Stephen Pleban paints in layer after layer of oil and wax on linen. He works fast, adding paint and scraping it back, then retreats to the studio couch to sit and look. Music is usually playing, and a lot of his ideas come out of it. He wants the finished paintings to stay a bit mysterious.
The images build up like collage, pulled from memory, documentaries, old books, the internet, and his own photographs. In the newer work, abstract and figurative pieces sit together, and people and animals live together in a calm, timeless world. Beneath all of it is a genuine worry about nature and how we treat it.
Pleban was born in Melbourne, with Dutch roots, took a fine art degree at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1986, and later studied in Rotterdam. He lives and works in regional Victoria, has shown recently in Sydney and Melbourne, and has been a finalist in several major Australian prizes.
