Engaging with the Unfamiliar with Zoe Grey

Fostering a deep connection to place through painting, drawing, collage and ceramics, Tasmania-based artist Zoe Grey is driven by the experience of engaging with the unfamiliar.

Words: Cardia Speziale I Photography: Willem-Dirk du Toit & Rosie Hastie

‘I think you just have to keep turning up make honest work and hold your integrity to the highest regard,’ says Zoe Grey. Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit

Abalone In The Sky, Tell Me Why by Zoe Grey. Photo: Courtesy of Despard Gallery

Dusk Knows by Zoe Grey. Photo: Rosie Hastie

Raised on the remote and rugged Northwest coast of Lutruwita, Tasmiania, Zoe Grey has always found inspiration in the natural landscape around her. Forming a large part of her creative practice today, these expansive natural places inspire the artist to seek connection in the unfamiliar, using art as a tool to nurture and unpack such relationships to place.

‘I’m interested in exploring notions of home, connection to place and the experience of landscape,’ shares Zoe. ‘I’m deeply and endlessly inspired by my home and a desire to understand and nurture my connection to that place really drives my practice,’ she adds.

Having begun to explore her relationship with art through what she describes as an ‘angsty teenage lens’, Zoe’s interest in painting and the ways in which it could aid the emotional self-expression eventually led her to graduating with First Class Honours from the University of Tasmania in 2018. With a number of solo exhibitions nationally, her work is now held in private collections all around the world, and in the public collection of the Devonport Regional Gallery.

‘This is my dream job, and I pinch myself that that’s the case,’ she says. ‘It’s crazy that I’m lucky enough to be doing something that fills me with so much passion, drive and purpose—of course there are hard days, many of them, but there are so many people who are not this lucky, so it makes me want to work hard, soak it up, and count my blessings.’

Deeply inspired by the landscape of her home, Marrawah, located on the western edge of Tasmania on Peeraper Country, the artist’s line of inquiry into the natural wonders of the area has been ongoing for the last decade, informing hundreds of drawings and paintings. ‘My identity is tied up with a sense of belonging to that place. It’s who I am, and it’s intwined in my practice—how and why I make work,’ reflects Zoe.

Collecting valuable lessons along the way in her creative journey, and embracing each challenge as a learning, Zoe finds comfort in the knowing that there’s ‘no finish line for growth’ and ‘no roadmap for being an artist’. Coming up for Zoe in 2024 is an exhibition at Despard Gallery on the 26th of June, called Could You Ever Know Ever Fold In The Mountain, followed by Sydney Contemporary in September, where James Makin Gallery will be showing a collection of her work. ‘I’m really looking forward to heading up north and being a part of that, and then I think I’ll have a little rest,’ she says.

Zoe is currently based in nipaluna/Hobart, working out of the Artist Run Initiative, Good Grief Studios, and is represented by Despard Gallery, in Hobart and James Makin Gallery, in Melbourne. Learn more about Zoe’s work here.

The Sea’s Skin (Sink or Swim) by Zoe Grey. Photo: Rosie Hastie

‘I always had a bit of an interest in art and creating things, but I certainly wasn’t some child prodigy who could draw perfectly or anything.’ Photo: Willem-Dirk du Toit

“I’ll never have my practice ‘figured out’. I’ll keep chasing a desire to be a better painter, make work that pushes forward, takes risks, experiments. I’ll always feel unsure but that’s okay, that’s why we keep coming back for more. That’s the beauty of creative pursuits, they’re never done.”

— Zoe Grey

The Sun Determines Your Seeing by Zoe Grey. Photo: Rosie Hastie

‘My work has changed a lot, but I can still trace back to that early interest in the way we connect to the natural environment around us.’ Above: Between Seeing and Feeling by Zoe Grey. Photo: Rosie Hastie