The Australian artist inspired by Pollock finds expressionism a way to help people explore their personal feelings.
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Estelle Asmodelle, is an Australian artist born in a small town named Bowral. She started painting at an early age as her mother was an artist as well. When she was little, Estelle painted landscapes and portraits. Once she moved to a larger city for University, she came into contact with abstract expressionism. She fell in love with the technique and from that time on she defined herself as an abstract painter. Since then, the artist has worked and lived in seven different countries, but the most significant locations she explored were Los Angeles and Tokyo. For the artist the cultural shock and the differences of these countries changed her way of painting, bringing new vision in her ways of understanding people and society, bringing her abstractionism to an eclectic mix as it is today. Her bigger artistic influences are Van Gogh, Pollock, Rothko and Klimt.
Estelle Asmodelle focuses on abstract art. As she stated: “the more abstract, the better”. She does not define herself as being similar to Pollock or the artist of the New York school. She aims to be extremely abstract, as she does not want the observer to see faces or familiar objects in her work. She wants her paintings to be void of conventional symbolism so that they challenge people’s experience with the art works. Rather than unconsciously restoring to pareidolia, which is the mind’s ability to see familiar objects in abstract scenes, they tend to respond to emotions. Abstract expressionism is for her the way it makes you feel, not what you are looking at. The emotional experience is the reason why she became an abstract painter, being for the artist the most important thing about her art. Looking at a picture has, usually, an intellectual response, trying to associate an image with a name of something you are familiar with. This makes the experience more cognitive. Looking at a highly abstract painting, instead, gives the viewer nothing to relate to, no form, structure or object. People respond emotionally to what they are seeing, experiencing the work in a unique and individual way. Estelle wants the people to have unique emotional experiences that forces them to examine themselves.
“Garden of the Hesperides” is a work made of two panels in total. The artwork is based on Greek mythology, whereby the gods gained their power by eating the fruit (golden apples) of the garden to obtain immortality. There is a metaphor in this work concerning our need to live longer. The work is in two parts that should be displayed in two parts. Part one, represents someone entering the garden and eating the golden apple. Part two, shows that after obtaining immortality, someone can then see eternity. Usually, the Australian artist contemplates a theme for an artwork or series of paintings, which she meditates on it casually for a day or so. It can start from anything, from climate change to cosmology, social issues or current events. Once she has explored and understood the topic, sometimes requiring online research and meditation, she is ready to begin. When Estelle starts painting she asks herself how the subject she aims to portray makes her feel. Once the feelings emerge, she purges the ideas from her mind and holds on to the emotions, and she starts to paint. The painting encapsulates her feeling without the contamination of ideas and thoughts, representing how she feels.
The artist’s favorite medium is synthetic polymer acrylic. She loves the texture and its vivid color. In addition, it dries very fast, which makes it ideal as a medium to paint with. The synthetic polymer acrylic flows easily on the canvas suiting her style. Estelle is driven by the desire to create something new, making it impossible for her not to paint for more than a few days. She feels like there is something inside her that wants to break out. She calls it “the creative desire”, which is so strong she is never tired of creating and experimenting.
Cover image: Estelle Asmodelle. Post Pollock. Courtesy of Teravarna Gallery
Written by Asia Artom
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