Nora Sumberg

Nora Sumberg (born 1956) is an Australian landscape painter whose work has over time become increasingly lyrical, abstract and atmospheric. Her art is characterized by intense, floating swathes of colour, impressionistic and ambiguous terrain and glowing, multi-directional light sources. Examples of Sumberg's art are held in The National Gallery of Victoria, The Queensland Art Gallery, The Heide Museum of Modern Art and the Smorgan Collection. Sumberg is also the granddaughter of Voldemar Sumberg, the Minister for Social Affairs under the Otto Tief Government in Estonia. Estonian culture is important to Sumberg and she has an artist residency in Tallinn in 2011.

Education

Sumberg completed a Diploma in Fine Arts (painting) at Caulfield Institute of Technology, Chisholm (now Monash University) followed by Postgraduate Studies at the New York Studio School, New York, in 1978. She attained Master of Fine Arts at Monash University in 1996.

Formative years

While studying on an Australia Council Scholarship at the New York Studio School, New York, Sumberg lived in the Hotel Chelsea and became acquainted with and befriended notable musicians and performers such as Blondie, Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, Johnny Rotten, Richard Hell and filmmaker Luis Buñuel. During this period Sumberg dressed in punk clothing designed by her friend, fashion designer Jenny Bannister, when punk itself as a cultural movement had barely begun to make an impression in America. Her teachers at Caulfield Institute of Technology included Australian artist Gareth Sansom, to whom she was married for 10 years. Australian-born singer-songwriter Nick Cave was a fellow student and friend of Sumberg's.

Sumberg's early paintings were figurative and somewhat indebted to pop art and the milieu she was part of, with areas of bold, flat colour and schematic, heavily out-lined drawing, done in enamel on Masonite. Australian artist and critic Robert Rooney wrote of these works: "…The best are boldly painted and ambitiously constructed, often with the aid of fish-eye lens distortion…. Surfaces are smooth, with an occasional drip on a tuxedo in ‘Dijon Waiter’ or a wrinkled skin in ‘Model Lisa No. 6.’ Flat areas and images are outlined in black."

Maturity

Sumberg’s shift into landscape included the introduction of architectural elements and props, frequently depicting expressive, labyrinthine mazes or Italian Villa Garden features such as topiary, gazebos, statues and columns. Sumberg's construction of space was unconventional and complex, with multiple or hidden horizons and the cropping and over-lapping of contradictory, slightly tilted perspectives (often the result of separately painted panels joined together), giving perhaps a subjective account of wandering through the many windings and turnings of such gardens. These works followed a residency at the Australia Council’s Besozzo Studio, where Sumberg studied 19thC Italian Villa gardens. These paintings were typically large, multi-panel works. Noted Australian poet and art critic Gary Catalano, wrote: "Too little of the art I see forces my eye to change gear, and I like Sumberg's paintings for just this reason".

Later work saw her largely dispense with the depiction of discrete forms and spatial discontinuities as atmospheric unity and drama assumed a greater importance, particularly the play of light and colouristic intensity. Outlines became less distinct and were subsumed by the overall atmospherics and an increasingly lyrical yet highly considered paint handling. Much of Sumberg's work stems from an emotional, deeply personal response to the Croajingolong National Park, located on the South-East coast of Australia.

Australian artists who have inspired Sumberg include Clarice Beckett and Ken Whisson, the former for her mastery of mood and understatement and the latter for his linear, expressive brushwork. Many recent paintings, such as 'Discombobulation 2', 2004, include abstract elements combined with broadly evoked terrain, foliage and large bodies of water. Poetic and philosophical titles are important to Sumberg. For example: 'Anyone Who Thinks He Understands Nature Should Look Again', 'The Listener', 'Upon a Red Cloud Floating', 'Mostly Awake' and 'Frequencies'.

Jenny Zimmer, reviewing Sumberg's 1990 exhibition 'Purely Painting' at Michael Wardell Gallery, wrote that Sumberg: "transforms sun and cloud and the effects of each on the other into bursts of sensation. Though infused with the nature worship of European romanticism, Sumberg's effects are modern".

Sumberg is currently represented by Jenny Port Gallery in Richmond, Victoria, Australia.

Awards and prizes

• 1978 Visual Arts Board, Australia Council, Peter Brown Memorial Scholarship, New York Studio School, USA
• 1982 Visual Arts Board, Australia Council, Besozzo Studio
• 1988 Visual Arts Board, Australia Council, Project Grant
• 1989 St Kilda City Council Acquisition Drawing Prize, Melbourne
• 2000 Artist in Residence, Bundanon, The Arthur & Yvonne Boyd Program for the Arts, Shoalhaven, NSW
• 2003 Artist in Residence, The Tower Studio, Victorian Trades Hall Council, Melbourne
• 2004 Artist in Residence, St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne
• 2005 Artist in Residence, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, Brisbane
• 2007 Artist in Residence, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China

Collections

• National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
• Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
• Heide Museum of Modern Art
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
• Monash University
• Smorgan Collection
• Baillieu Myer Collection
• The Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Centre for the Arts
• Artbank, Sydney