By Web3ArtBlog.NFT

Australia is home to beautiful flaura and fauna that can only truly thrive and bloom once they have faced the scorching adversity of a bushfire.

Australia is also home to Synkitty founder of enABLEdinNFT. She is a visual NFT artist who has faced adverity and turned it into beautiful art with the inspiration from her wonderful daughter.

Please read and share this inspiring interview from Down Under (Australia) and support the amazing artistry of Synkitty.

Question: You have experienced tragedy, rehabilitation, birth and a new beginning through artistic expression inspired from your time playing with your precious daughter. Can you describe how it was like when your world began to open up again after your precious daughter was born?

Answer: I guess my self-identity had already been thoroughly challenged by the physical changes in the past few years and then pregnancy made me question even more about whether I was ready and able to be a good parent, Will I measure up to my awesome Mums example? There is all this fear that you won’t be good enough in general but also I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to care physically for her, will I be a good mum if I can’t run and play or carry her safely? Then she was born and bang! The person I was or wasn’t didn’t matter anymore because all of a sudden I was a mother. Someone new and I had to rediscover who I was all while creatively problem solving to meet her needs. She was, and still is, always in a hurry, she started walking by 6 months and she was curious about absolutely everything and so I was thrust straight from nothing into constant incoming stimuli. It was overwhelming because I felt like every part of me was being rebuilt. I went from this grey nothing to a burst of colour and life and I was just a limp rag tumbled in the wake of something massive and incomprehensible. Every day is draining and challenging yet experiencing the world through her eyes has really helped me to see the joy in little things. Motherhood just blew my world to pieces and its crazy and hard and stressful! But then I realised I can see what really matters so much more and there’s beauty in that mess.

Question: How important is colour in your vibrant and lively paintings?

Colour is really important to me and I have always loved bright and warm colours like red and pink as they felt full of life, my emotions are influenced by the colours I surround myself with so painting with the rainbow is a big boost mentally. I also noticed my perspective changed radically in the past few years, before when I looked at a cream wall it was just cream but I started realising that wasn’t the full picture. There are cool greens in the morning, warm yellows in the afternoon, purple and blue in early evening but never just cream, it was interesting. I started really focusing on seeing those details in the world around me and how objects and light interact together and try to express that in my work.

Question: You have a passion for endangered animals. Can you describe how this came about and how you are incorporating endangered animals into your art?

Answer: I grew up in the country and I have always loved animals, I am pretty sure I tried to take every animal home with me. I think growing up surrounded by nature, far away from towns helped make me so aware of the impacts of climate change on the land around us although it’s hard not to see the devastating droughts, floods and fires we have been facing in recent years and the impact on so many species directly from our choices. My daughter is my strongest motivator though, I want her to grow up and see everything in our beautiful world, not as a story but as a harmonious ecosystem. I think we are more likely to save the things we love and if I can show even a small piece of my subjects soul to make the viewer think, then it’s a great start.

Question: You mentioned in your ko-fi fundraising campaign that you rarely paint physically with traditional mediums anymore because of your injuries. Have you been able to get hold of a working art tablet so you can continue to make digital art?

Answer: Yes I have which is such a relief. My husband and I ended up getting a small loan to buy it although it isn’t fully paid off yet we are working on it. I am really lucky that he has been so supportive of my art and loves tech as computers don’t like me much. Something weird usually happens when I use it and sometimes all he has to do is walk near and it will start working again . Trying to use paint in bed rarely ends well so having the freedom to create and splash colour all over my screen wherever I am is wonderful.

Question: Your self portrait is truly an amazing and colorful expression and it reminds me of unique tribal Aboriginal and Maori art. How did that excellent piece come about?

Answer: Funnily enough she came about from an intuitive practice session where I chose a random colour palette and had to create a spontaneous painting only using those colours and she or ‘I’ just emerged. She was completely unplanned but she is like my arty alter ego – chilled, confident, colourful and happy to take on the world and I am working my way a bit closer to her each day. I do love the vibrant colours and bold brush strokes used by many traditional artists so it wouldn’t surprise me if her creation was subconsciously influenced by those styles.

Question:Your painting Rainbow Lolly makes me want to catch a flight down under and go on a weekend of bird watching. How is it going with your project to paint more of Australias famous birds?

Answer: You should definitely visit, I think Australia has so many cool species you never get bored. For paintings I haven’t done one in about a year or so now I think. In a funny sort of way my paintings of birds are also a self-portrait, I feel very much like a bird with clipped wings staring longingly at the big open skies. I tend to be strongly emotionally enmeshed in these paintings which is hard to describe but they are primarily about a sense of returning to life. I associate that idea for both my situation and species facing extinction, I think it’s about accepting there is a problem now but that there is always hope as long as we don’t give up. So I started meshing those emotions with the idea to raise awareness of iconic Australian birds at risk and my most recent painting was of the threatened Red-tailed Black cockatoo just beginning to lean into the wind, lift her wings and bunch leg muscles ready to launch into space which is where I feel I am at right now. I have worked hard in the past few years to build myself up and animal protections are beginning but we still have a lot of work to do. So I can’t quite paint them soaring
freely through the sky just yet but I feel like the next time a bird wings onto my canvas it will represent that next step in the journey.

Question: Can you talk about one of your most profound paintings titled Survivors. You wrote that, “it symbolises the strength to recover and even flourish after suffering just as many Banksia plants need fire for their life cycle to begin.” Can you please talk about that and how it relates to your life abd and work?

Answer: I love how there are so many plants in Australia that can only truly bloom once they have faced the adversity of a bushfire and it is a necessary part of their lifecycle. Usually after a bushfire roars through you can see burnt out homes and bushland, black and empty of life as far as you can see and yet as soon as it rains fresh and healthy regrowth bursts forth in its place. Some homes may not be rebuilt or regrow and things are a bit different but the destruction opens the way for new life to thrive. For me the idea of beauty born from the ashes is uplifting and hopeful as coming to terms with my disability was a difficult process. I felt stripped of my identity and value with nothing but black wherever I looked in the beginning but over time that changed. This painting was somewhat of an epiphany that while the house I built up was no longer there, new life was springing forth in its place ready to thrive if I let it.