Based in Wollongong, Alana Cappetta’s artistic practice is primarily concerned with evoking elements of Surrealism and the Uncanny through a dedication to painting. Over the past ten years, Cappetta has experimented with a vast array of figurative characters, inspired from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, graphic motifs and figures across popular culture. With an intricate attention to design and colour, her contorted figurative studies and landscapes – both real and imagined – take on a vibrant flavour that is both ominous and innocent. Informed by her skill in creating a world of depth on a small scale, Cappetta’s most recent multi-facetted four-panelled works on paper are an adventure of youthful creative possibility. With portraits of herself and friends reimagined as animals, staircases and windows leading to nowhere, never-ending corridors, these worlds are constrained to a slowly dissolving geometric logic. Like dreams, they come in vignettes that are at once visceral yet mysterious.

Alana Cappetta holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, and a Master of Curatorial Studies from Sydney College of the Arts (COFA). Exhibiting alongside Barbara Cleveland, this is Cappetta’s inaugural solo exhibition at the Gallery.