About
"I have always liked the idea of storytelling, and in the Jungian way, I am interested in how pictures,
like stories, myths and fairy tales, can function as maps or guides to the unconscious mind."
Melbourne Studio, 2016
Wellm approaches painting as a question. Drawing on the history of her own painting and on the histories of Painting, her creative process is an ongoing narrative. These paintings ask us to think about what we bring to the work, and how we produce and discover meaning for ourselves.
- Martina Copley, independent curator.
Detail, "Mother" 2016
Irene Wellm's work is characterized by a surreal and understated darkness. Her emblematic, large-scaled gouache paintings on paper depict figures that blend between recognizable human forms and other animalistic entities extracted from popular folklore and Greek mythology to form collage-like painted tableaux.
Wellm's new series of monochromatic paintings have evolved from her interest in shedding light on a deeper experience with reality through her inner psyche - her 'second self' - and plays a key role in linking the various suspended narratives she reveals to us through the strangeness of our own dream time and the apparitions that occupy those worlds.
- James Bowen, Fort Delta Gallery, Melbourne
The Artist in Leipzig, portrait by Margret Hoppe, 2013