By NOEL MURPHY
ANYONE not sleeping under a rock will have noticed the soaring boost in artwork around Geelong.
Street art in particular has been booming with inner-city lanes and old industrial precincts, once the preferred canvas of graffiti scribbles and daubs, ceding way to more sophisticated works.
Body art has moved into overdrive as well and for artists like Geelong’s Anna Mathieson the whole renaissance is a welcome phenomenon that’s broadening the scope and opportunity for artistic endeavour.
“Street art in the late ‘90s was lot of graf, some of it was amazing, but it’s really good to see art in buildings reflecting history, like Aboriginal portraits — it looks so good,” she told the Independent this week.
The 27-year-old, self-taught practitioner has spent her recent years travelling Australia, fruit-picking and singing across the north and dabbling with her art along the way.
Striking images such as intricately-detailed pointillist acoustic and electric guitars, pen and ink images ranging from stark to poignant and confronting, along with photographic constructs attest to a broad palette.
But Mathieson’s @pocketofdolls – you’ll find her across Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest – is evolving toward sacred linework. It’s indicative of the shifting ground artists are noticing.
“My art is mainly fired by my imagination, from things that have happened in my life, but lately I’m really interested in sacred geometry,” she said.
“I’ve been experimenting with it the last nine months and I’ve found a niche where I really like what I’m doing.
“I preferred new dot and linework, so I’ve used a bit of that and turned to my own version. Now I do a lot of Aztec stuff and astral and geometric celestial kind of things.”
While Mathieson’s doing more linework she retains a healthy catalogue of wide-ranging works: fairies, punks, nudes, warrior queens, portraits, tattoed ladies, pistol-packing dames and fantasy characters.
Work-wise, she gets by on private commissions, mostly by word of mouth – some of it for collectors, some for commercial use including fashion brands.
