Born 1996

Sydney, Australia

London based

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2016-2019 Fine Art BA Central Saint Martins

2015-2016 Foundation diploma at Central Saint Martins

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Specialising in digital illustration, Sweeney uses Adobe Photoshop to create intricately detailed illustrative portraits and design concepts. After graduating from Central Saint Martins, Sweeney has lived and worked in both Sydney and London, where she is now permanently based. She has worked in fashion, communications, the creative sectors, and as a freelance illustrator. 

 

Sweeney's practice references themes of the mundane, both physically and conceptually. The production of digital illustrations is an intensive process and her art (self-portrait series) explores and animates the monotonous ongoings of day-to-day life. Through the candid depictions of these simple actions, Sweeney’s explicit portrayals of herself wish to create an initial feeling of surprise, shock or humour, whereby the audience familiarises with the intimacy and vulnerability on show.

 

Each self-portraiture depicts scenarios more commonly done behind closed doors and acts as a visual representation to an emotive and personal poem. Some works are performative, where Sweeney has created an alter ego, often referencing themes of fandom and obsession.

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Through Sweeney's use of colour, her works are vibrant and intricately detailed. She references nature and still life through the digital medium. Sea creatures, flowers, fruit, bedsheets and interior spaces are all recurring themes in her practice. Sweeney likes to blur the lines between beauty and the grotesque through confronting viewers with half naked self-portraiture and dramatising features (darkness under her eyes), elongating and warping her figure, and with the portrayal of dead animals. The focus on her messy, lived in bed, exposing this intimate, indulgent space, brings to bare the privacy we all experience but hide away.