Studio Visit with Ingrid Kwong

Ingrid Kwong has a beautifully unique and recognisable style. Creating tiny land and seascape paintings on reclaimed wood, you might recognise her style from several of our past group exhibitions.

I met Ingrid for the first time recently at her beautiful sunny home in Newport. Upon entering the house, you walk straight into her studio and home gallery space, a light and breezy room with large floor to ceiling windows. Navy walls and salvaged, rustic wood crates and furniture create instant atmosphere with Ingrid’s signature “little scapes” on display. The studio is frequented by visitors and is the perfect place to display her work for the Pittwater Artist Trail open studios.

Ingrid is warm and very friendly, offering me tea and quiches while we get to know each other, we’ve corresponded via email and Instagram over the years but have never met. We talk about how she developed her style and her recent shift from graphic design to fine art.

Ingrid is part of our new exhibition TREESTORIES opening December 4th with friends and fellow artists Ingrid Bowen, Fiona Barrett-Clark and Emily Ellis. We talk about how this exhibition came about and how relationships between artists are so important.

Can you tell us a little about your creative background?

As long as I remember, I have always loved drawing. My mum is a watercolour and textile artist and so growing up I feel I was surrounded and influenced by her creativity.

As a child I loved writing stories and illustrating them, my school books filled with my neatest writing and detailed title pages and my diaries with drawings of my friends!

After taking art in high school, I went on to study at Randwick College where the course covered all areas of art, illustration, photography and graphic design. I fell in love with typography and so became a book designer in publishing which has been my career for the past 30 years.

I painted flowers, buildings and scenery from my travels around the world in my spare time and have loved going to life drawing classes but it wasn’t really until the past couple of years that I began painting land and seascapes. And I just love it!

You’re known for your small landscape paintings on reclaimed wood. How did this trademark style begin and why?

6 years ago we purchased a little fisherman’s shack at Mackerel Beach across Pittwater. During the renovation, we repurposed and salvaged as much of the original materials as we could. The offcuts of wood pieces soon became my canvases together with driftwood and flotsam and jetsam I found washed in on the beach by the wind and tides. Once we decided to share out our shack with guests, I would leave them a painting of the view from the shack as a small memory of their stay.

I love to create these ‘little scapes’ to capture lasting memories and connect us with nature. Using water-based acrylic paints mixed with sea or rainwater on salvaged pieces of timber, I hope my work is a true reflection of my environment and passion to protect it.

How has your art practice evolved and changed since you began painting?

I began creating my paintings as gifts and soon after joining the Pittwater Artists Trail last year, I found a way to share my artworks with a larger audience, through studio open days and group exhibitions. Meeting other artists through the trail and feeling supported in this way I have grown in confidence and have enjoyed the experience of entering art prizes, exhibitions and painting commissions of people’s favourite views or Pittwater scenes, and selling my work. I find the more original pieces of wood I collect the more interesting and detailed my paintings have become.

You are part of a group exhibition TREESTORIES at The Corner Store Gallery in December with fellow artists Ingrid Bowen, Fiona Barrett-Clark and Emily Ellis. How did the idea for this exhibition come about and what is your relationship to the other artists?

The idea for TREESTORIES came about through our connection as artists and as friends. We all have a shared interest in our environment, an appreciation of nature and beauty and were inspired to create our own narrative featuring trees, a common thread in all our artworks.

Do your relationships with other artists in your area play a big role in your practice?

Being part of the Artists’ Trail has been a great way to meet other artists and has been so rewarding to feel part of a group where we have art and creativity in common. We support, learn from and encourage each other, sharing our experiences of finding our passion and following it.

What’s next for you?

I look forward to new opportunities to share my experience of painting outdoors, connecting with the land and our environment through workshops at our shack by the sea, as well as exhibitions over there.

Caring about sustainability and the environment, I hope my little scapes inspire others to see the beauty in our area and want to protect it as much as I do.