Amanda Laing is an artist and designer from Brisbane interested in the human experience of colour and pattern. Inspired by the visual language of the natural world she explores how elements such as colour, line and repetition can be arranged together to hold narrative and express emotion. With a biophilic approach her work explores the human experience of nature through our visual memory and how this can easily evoke emotion. Working with mediums including paint, drawing, textiles and using re-purposed materials are of current interest in her practice. Laing places weight not only on the human experience of viewing art, but also the process of experimenting with mixed media to allow for serendipitous discovery. She believes in art making as a powerful form of personal expression in particular for developing children and people of neurodiversity.  Of Dutch heritage, Laing has a Bachelor of Built Environment and Bachelor of Education Secondary Art and has completed a Graduate Certificate in visual arts at QCA.

A space to create.  A studio, a virtual space, a favourite armchair in the corner of a room or just in our heads – it doesn’t matter where – simply a space to explore, imagine, invent, dream and express our ideas…

Welcome to my creative space, a holding place for some of my most favourite things to do.  I design, make, draw, paint, sew, weave, photograph and collect.  I’m inspired by nature and its relationship to the built world around me and I’m constantly guided by and drawn back to its beauty and intelligence. I am interested in the human experience of both making and viewing art and am fascinated by the ability for simple elements such as colour, line and texture to evoke emotion. I have a Graduate Certificate of Visual arts at QCA and have a Bachelor of Built Environment and Bachelor of Education from QUT.

Here you will find a series of paintings, I work mainly in acrylic at the moment and also like to incorporate textiles somehow into my work whether its stitching in offcuts, stitching into the canvas  itself or printing my works digitally onto textiles. I am interested in the simple process of mark making and enjoy painting intuitively as well as planned often exploring pattern.  I am constantly driven by colour and texture and I enjoy exploring the powerful emotive response of these elements in particular where it collides with memory.  I take commissions – view my paintings page for some works including a recent painting for Caitlin Mullins Psychology. You can also find some of my art minted on the blockchain go to @FoundationAPP

Textiles are in my blood, both my Grandmothers were skilled with the needle one of them teaching me to sew, one Grandfather a tailor, the other an artist. Textiles are also an extension of my love of textural qualities and I often like using textiles with other mediums such as paint. In 2022 I was fortunate to be a finalist for Eden Gardens Unearthed sculptural exhibition using textiles and recycled materials. Head over here or to my textiles menu to view the work.

I have worked with cyanotype printing onto textiles. You can also view some of these works printed onto vintage linens, which explore my Dutch cultural heritage on my textile art page.   NeekieNoo is my making playground- textile accessories and pieces for the home, made from vintage fabrics and some of my surface designs printed onto fabric.  The weavings are all handmade using a vintage flower loom. A re-imagining of a vintage craft.

You will also find here collections of Surface Patterns which all started life as either hand drawings, paintings, collage or photographs.  They have then been digitally manipulated to make seamless pattern repeats. I am very experimental with media and I like to create unique textures using paint, pen, pencil, watercolour and printmaking. However, nothing quite beats just drawing with a black pen, a natural default for me spending many years technical drawing as a commercial Interior Designer. I am available for freelance pattern design and licencing, please do get in touch. A couple of recent custom designs for Banjo & Co Home here are here.

Lastly, Paprly  is a place to browse and buy some of my unique patterns on wrapping paper, gift tags, greeting cards, giclee art prints, tea-towels and heat bags. As well as buy original paintings.

A selection of my textile designs can also be purchased on fabric by the metre at @Nextstateprint as well as collections available for printing onto fabric, wallpaper, carpet or laminate for commercial Interiors at Emily Ziz  -see Bushland Blooms  and Artisinal . My latest collection ‘Memory. Garden’  is with Digital Fabrics.

Please take a look, enjoy and thanks for visiting my creative space.

If you would like to work with me freelance, or are interested in a commission or licensing textile designs please contact me at amandalouiselaing@gmail.com

You will also find me in some of these other virtual creative spaces: Instagram here, and here, and Facebook here, and here.

                                                                              Thanks for visitting!

Education

Griffith University, QCA Graduate Certificate in Visual Art 2021

QUT Bachelor of Built Environment, Interior Design 1997

QUT Bachelor of Education, Secondary Art/History 1994

Exhibitions

2024 February, ‘Foraged’ solo exhibition at The Empire Revival vintage store in Paddington

2023 December, Red Gallery Fitzroy, Melbourne Sixty By Sixty exhibition

2023 December, The Sculpture Garden exhibition at Fairhill Native Botanic Gardens Ninderry, Qld

2023 Sept, Stevens Street Gallery, Pocket Pieces, Yandina, Qld

2023 Sept, Stevens Street Gallery Abstract Exhibition, Yandina, Qld

2023 August, Materially Designed Petrie Tce Gallery, Brisbane

2023 May, Petrie Tce Gallery, Brisbane Landmarks, Landscapes & Personalities

2023 May, Aspire Gallery Rustle exhibiton and Little Feature Wall,  Paddington, Qld

2023 March, Red Hill Gallery Brisbane Neu Neu exhibition of emerging artists, Red Hill, Qld

2023 March, Aspire Gallery Petite Pieces Finalist, Paddington, Qld

2023 Jan, Brunswick Street Gallery Small Works Art Prize Exhibition, Fitzroy, Melbourne

2022 Oct-April 23, Eden Gardens Unearthed Exhibition finalist, Macquarie Park, NSW

2022 Oct, Aspire Gallery Summits to Shores Exhibition, Paddington, Qld

2022 August, Aspire Gallery Abstract and Little Feature Exhibitions, Paddington, Qld

2022 Feb, Art Red Hill Exhibition, Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria

http://www.artredhill.redhillcs.vic.edu.au

2022 The Designer project Exhibition, Digital Fabrics, Marrickville, NSW

2022 Art for Floods www.artforfloods.com

2022 Incognito Art Show www.incognitoartshow.com, NSW

2019 Aspire Gallery-Petite Pieces Exhibition, Paddington, Qld

2017 Art Red Hill Exhibition, Red Hill, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria