Joanna Poulson

Joanna Poulson is a Tarntanya / Adelaide-based visual artist. Working in the tonal realist tradition, her oil paintings of the garden and flowering plants explore the beauty and vibrancy of nature. Poulson’s process is rooted in the act of close and patient observation of floral forms. The artist works from photographs, documenting her studio garden in bloom, capturing snapshots that sharply frame details with a compelling reverence.

Selecting an image, she then translates the composition to canvas, scaling the work to draw viewers’ attention to the complex formal qualities of flowers – petals, calyx, leaves, stamen – through the precision of brushwork and subtle interplay of colours. In the compositions, sharply focused foregrounds give way to soft, out-of-focus background which incorporate both figurative and abstract elements.

Capturing the fall of light and shadow on snapdragons, ranunculi, euphorbia, zinnia and kalanchoe, and begonia – amongst other varieties – the artist achieves precision and a faithful impression through studious application of paint, often covering the canvas with three layers using a flat brush blending technique, to build a tonal richness that evokes a sense of rapture.