Anderson inspiration for emerging artists

ACCLAIMED visual artist Kim Anderson has another achievement to add to her list.

Among the group of six honourees for Zonta’s Ballarat Great Women for 2021, Anderson said she’s honoured to be recognised in this form for her work.

“All I feel like I do is hide in my studio and make art work so it’s nice to know that what I do has some sort of intrinsic value to people,” she said.

“It means a lot when people get something out of my work and something like this is really unbelievable, I just draw pictures.

“It’s great that Zonta actually acknowledge all of the great women in Ballarat as well because there are a lot.”

Although Anderson primarily works with finely detailed drawings, over the years her work has taken on many forms beyond paper including textiles, projections and installations.

“My work recently has been about the experience of grief and anxiety in the face of climate change,” she said.

“I go out into the landscape and photograph myself in the landscape enacting these rituals of mourning or breathing and then use those photographs as the basis for my drawings.

“Drawing has been at the heart of my practice even when its huge installation pieces or drawings on the wall.”

Having been awarded a multitude of grants and prizes over the years including small grants from the Ballarat Arts Foundation and the Eureka Art Prize, Anderson said one of her proudest achievements was signing to a gallery in Melbourne.

“I signed to Flinders Lane Gallery in 2019 which was huge to have formal representation, and they are really supportive of my practice and was a massive step up,” she said.

“I also spent a couple of years on the BAF grants committee which was really nice to do and be on the other side of it and support other emerging artists.”

Having faced her fair share of rejections and disappointments throughout her decade-long career, Anderson said her advice for emerging artists is to take every chance you can.

“It’s been hard but you have to keep generating your own opportunities and getting your work out there,” she said.

“There’s lots of disappointment and rejections, even living on the poverty line, but you have to keep doing it and pushing on.

“I do it because I love it and I have no idea what else I would do.”

With a show coming up in June in Melbourne, Anderson said she hopes as we come out the other side of the pandemic, that the public will have an increased appreciation for art and creativity in all its forms.

“Art has so many benefits for your mental health whether you do it as a career or not,” she said.

“A lot of people now understand the value of doing some sort of creative activity for your own personal wellbeing, that’s part of the reason why I do it.”