INSPIRE: Interior designer and artist Seirah Woodward inking her way for 2024 Southern Art and Craft Trail

Denmark artist Seirah Woodward will bring her abstract twist on the natural environment to the 2024 Southern Art & Craft Trail. Originally from Sydney, Woodward fell in love with Denmark and settled in the coastal town in 2007. She said she did not do art in high school and was “pretty well self-taught” apart from completing a colour course while living in Sydney and learning to paint in gouache. “I’ve always been drawn to graphics — I’m actually an interior designer, architectural draftsperson so some of my newer work has that quite graphic kind of feel to it,” she said. “I love colour which is really funny considering I’m doing a whole series of paintings at the moment. “Someone gave me some coloured inks a long time ago and I’ve just kind of stayed with ink.” She said she sometimes gets stuck when approaching a canvas with acrylic paint but is determined to push herself. “I have done a couple of acrylic paintings on canvas and that’s a bit scary, but I need to push myself and do that a bit more,” she said. “I took one of my ideas that I did do in ink on to acrylic on a canvas, and I must admit I did get a bit frustrated, but a friend of mine loved it and bought it. “I’ve just got to bite the bullet and take a deep breath and go for it, and sometimes for me that takes a while to happen. “I can kind of get stuck, and then once I unstuck myself it’s easy.” Woodward has taken part in the Southern Art and Craft Trail since 2018, first exhibiting at the Boston Brewery, and is now the vice-chair of Art South WA, the trail organisation. She draws inspiration from her surrounding natural environment which she takes photos of and translates into hand-painted work. “If I’m out, I’ll take photos of things,” she said. “I’m a pretty visual person, so I can visualise things I see and from there they’ll go down on paper. “At first I kind of do really rough pencil sketches, and then I tend to do like a thin, black outline, and then I take it from there. “I do start with a plan of how I think it’s going to go, but I invariably make mistakes and I go, ‘Ok, that’s not quite what I wanted, so I’ll just change direction’. “And the more I do, the more comfortable I am with it just taking its own journey, and I just go with that.” Woodward says she prefers to ink and paint in abstract and put her own spin on how she sees the world. “I’ve just done a series where I had the idea of flowers, but I made them very geometric and quite stylised,” she said. “I don’t tend to paint the world realistically. “Someone once said if you want a real image of something you can take a photo, so I put my style and my spin on things, and it’s very much my happy place. “I would prefer to do it all day, every day, rather than work.” When approaching a fresh art piece Woodward said she does not always have a plan, but rather an idea of what she wants to accomplish and will “give it a go”. She said she can draw on her technical drafting skills when creating art but tends to freestyle her art and technique. “I’ve still got a drawing board which I use depending on if I’m doing quite geometrical abstract works,” she said. “Some of the work is more abstract and doesn’t use those sorts of circle guides or ellipse guides — I tend to be a bit freer. “It’s like a balance between the two. “I think sometimes it’s just pencil on paper, and then other times it’s more structured so it can be a combination.” She said it was “a bit daunting” when she was asked to sit on the board of the trail and she was “humbled” by the work Art South put into ensuring the trail goes off without any issues. Woodward said the trail was a great opportunity for artists of all levels to share their work with the wider community. “The Art Trail just gives artists, like me, an opportunity to share what is our very happy place and what we’re passionate about,” she said. “It just enables you to be able to share art, which is really valuable — not only for the artists, but also for the people that come and see the art.” Beyond the 2024 Southern Art and Craft Trail, Woodward is eyeing off the 2025 Pemberton Art Prize. Woodward’s artwork can be viewed at Forest Hill Wines Cellar Door from September 21 to October 6.

INSPIRE: Interior designer and artist Seirah Woodward inking her way for 2024 Southern Art and Craft Trail

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