Effie Pryer, IWD breakfast guest

Effie Pryer is a young artist who has been painting and exhibiting for a number of years in Hobart.

Effie’s family moved to Hobart when she was three, and she enrolled at Dominic College in Year 4 when her mother started work next door at GYC.

She always loved painting and expressive arts, from an early age, and Art classes at Dominic College in Years 7-10 were what she looked forward to each day.

Her oil painting skills matured quickly and she painted her first nude at GYC.

Effie did her BA in Fine Arts at UTAS, and a Masters in Cultural Materials Conservation at University of Melbourne as well as studies in Europe. The Colville Gallery’s Director, Trudi Curtis, said that Effie has demonstrated outstanding handling in the portraiture genre.

‘Effie has received awards and accreditation on a national level including the RACT Portraiture Prize, the Manning Prize, the Qantas Young Achievers Art Awards and the Black Swan Portraiture Prize 2017.’

Effie said that she loved her cultural and historical studies, too, and that it was important to understand art doesn’t happen in a vacuum but as part of a society.

‘When I was younger, I was sure that I lived in a cultural void. Disconnected from any particular cultural ancestry, Ned Kelly was about the only mythical Australian hero I could think of and there were no Australian saints to patronise my suburban existence. Instead I became preoccupied by the exotic paintings in my beloved encyclopaedia of European mythology.

‘Classical, Norse and Celtic mythology have developed over millennia and influenced artists continuously; I became one of many inspired by their tales of heroism, drama and supernatural intervention. My paintings reference these ancient stories and characters from an unavoidably Tasmanian point of view, an eccentric combination of narratives reflecting our uniquely jumbled cultural perspective.’

Effie now combines painting with art practice and administration through working part-time at MONA’s warehouse in Moonah. Her journey has been compelling and rewarding – and her next steps will be of great interest.

You can hear something about it at the Dominic College International Women’s Day breakfast on Wednesday 7 March, where Effie will be a special guest. Entry by ticket only – book at www.trybooking.com/TQDN
Tickets are $10 each and funds support scholarships for girls at school in Samoa.