November 26, 2015

ARTIST JOANNA LOGUE








After finishing her final year at art school, Joanna Logue started to think about representation. She met Kim Bonython at his then Sydney gallery in Woollahra – Bonython Meadmore Gallery - pulling up in a taxi as she didn’t have a driver’s licence at time. As Joanna arrived, Kim was leaving and so she ended up showing him her work on the street. "Kind of in the gutter," she says. "He was quite taken with my work and put me in a group show with John Coburn and some other older generation artists.” After selling her works she was offered a place in the gallery’s stable. While she admits she was young and naive at the time, it was her start on the path to working as a full-time artist. Joanna is now represented by King Street Gallery in Sydney and is also about to participate in a group show at the Anna Pappas Gallery. The works, based on the landscape around her country property in Oberon, NSW, will be on show from 11-23 December.

Which five words best describe you? Passionate, curious, sensitive, driven, sensualist.

How did you get your career start and what path have you taken since? When I was a young painter I won the Kings Art Prize and went on to join the Tim Olsen Gallery. I had quite a few very successful exhibitions and was fortunate to be able to support myself through my work and purchase a beautiful historic property in country NSW where I could live and make my work. 

What’s the best lesson you’ve learnt along the way? To take time out of the studio, even when I am on a deadline, to re-energize, reflect and fill the well. 

What’s your proudest career achievement? Joining King Street Gallery where I share the stable with great painters including my heroes Elizabeth Cummings and Idris Murphy. 

What’s been your best decision? Moving to my country property Essington Park where I lived for 20 years in relative isolation, deep thinking and making my paintings inspired by the surrounding landscape.


What are you passionate about? Painting, of course. But I am also passionate about cooking - it runs in the family, music, literature, being in nature and cinema.

Which person, living or dead, would you most like to meet? Brian Eno.

What dream do you still want to fulfill? I would love to go to Antarctica as an artist in residence with Australian Antarctica Expeditions. I think it would be really challenging for the psyche to be butted up against the sublime, artistically and on a personal level. 



images courtesy of joanna logue; portrait frank lindner