Amber Wallis
Yellow interior and marigolds 2023
oil on Linen
Courtesy of the artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne

Amber Wallis
Yellow interior and marigolds 2023
oil on Linen
Courtesy of the artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne


Amber Wallis


Yellow interior and marigolds 2023
oil on linen
Courtesy of the artist, Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, and Nicholas Thompson Gallery, Melbourne

Artist statement:

This work portrays me, my matrilineal line and the ghostly apparitions that exist for me within landscapes, architectural forms and interiors of my past. I am interested in notions of care, in women's experiences of steadfastness, protection and guardianship, and simultaneously our invisibility.

As a daughter of the counterculture, I often paint from the viewpoint of the voyeur: looking into the rooms of a handmade home I once knew that had no doors. This was an architectural tool used to collapse privacy for communal living, instead putting women and children at risk. I’m interested in where utopian architecture and ideals turn dystopian.

During a residency surrounded by Margaret Olley’s flowers I transmuted this darker conceptual terrain and pivoted to paint my way into safety: in this work trauma is healed and I can experience safety as an adult.