Kiandra Buchanan

Kiandra Buchanan is originally from Naarm (Melbourne) but now calls Wadandi Boodja (Margaret River) home. Since completing her multidisciplinary fine arts education in Melbourne she has gravitated towards painting and works primarily with oils. Buchanan’s focus is still life and figurative works. She likes to work with open compositions, a bright light and modern palette. The works speak of softness and intimacy, our inner worlds, the beauty of the everyday and finding a refreshed perspective amongst the ordinary. Buchanan’s works celebrate the materiality of paint, displaying its translucent and opaque properties within the one painting. The work is textural and built up in areas, and paired back with the underpainting on show in other areas. The artworks are mostly completed in the Alla Prima or wet on wet method, allowing greater manipulation of the paint layers and textures. This also better enables the work to be an immediate response to the subject and the emotion of the scene. Buchanan’s subjects are chosen to build a story around a thought or feeling. They are a glimpse into ones inner world. Her works feature negative space, room for rest and thought, in the hopes that the viewer will pause and seek their own personal connection and meaning with the subjects.