Amanda Marburg's distinctive paintings are the end product of an extended process involving photography and model making. Her method is to build plasticine figures and structures before photographing the strange worlds she creates against studio backdrops, which then act as the final basis for her paintings. Characterised by an interchange between two and three-dimensional forms, this laborious process eschews painting things from real life, and instead offers a sustained examination and reworking of ideas and tropes that premise painting as a type of model. Marburg draws from film and art history, as well as cultural artefacts and paraphernalia, to create narratives which are often melancholic yet irreverent.
Born in 1976, Amanda Marburg is a Melbourne-based painter who graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne, in 1999. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including: The Sixth, Westspace, Melbourne, 2013; Art & Australia Collection, MOP Gallery, Sydney, 2012; Like, Casula Powerhouse Gallery, Sydney, 2012; Model Pictures, Ian Potter Museum of Art, The University of Melbourne, 2011; neo-Gothic, Queensland University Art Museum, Brisbane, 2008; Primavera, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2007; Depth of Field, Shepparton Art Gallery, Victoria, 2003; Neo Noir, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, 2002; and Fascination, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, 2000. In 2008 Marburg undertook a Rome studio residency, funded by the Australia Council. She was a finalist in the 2011 and 2013 Archibald Prize.