Artists in Residence

Virginia Cuppaidge (1943 - ) Australia

Title: Terra Firma Light Medium: Oil on Canvas Date : 1985

Dimensions: 182cm x 244cm Collection category: Painting

Artist in Residence program, funded by Cathryn and Margaret Mittelheuser.

Virginia Cuppaidge was the first Artist in Residence at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, sponsored by the Mittleheuser sisters, Catherine and Margaret, in 1985.

After several years of study in Australia, Cuppaidge travelled to New York in 1969 to follow her dream of experiencing Abstract Expressionism firsthand in the city of its birth. Cuppaidge remained in New York for the next forty years. During this time, she held numerous solo and group exhibitions in the USA, Canada and Australia, and found recognition both as an artist and as a teacher. In 2017 she returned to Australia to live. Virginia has always believed that the Australian landscape and experience were inherent in her works. In this painting, where she sought ideas from the students here that she workshopped with, she has mixed a series of geometrical shapes and floated them in colour fields, giving an energy, movement and light to the painting.

Cuppaidge’s work is represented in a number of Australian national galleries, including our QAGOMA.

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