This work is part of Amanda Schunker’s 2024 exhibition, The Song of Increase.

The Song of Increase is the most joyful emanation produced by a colony of bees. Is this possible for humans also? How do we find ways to raise our vibration, particularly if we find ourselves in the depths of grief and despair? Is it possible to do so collectively? Where do we return to, where time stands still?

Says Amanda of her work: “I find myself traversing the landscape time and time again, finding solace within the magnitude of rock formations. These ancient, non-denominational forms dwarf any reticence. I paint en plein air, melding the nuances and intricacies before me, with a sense of immediacy and uninhibited responses. In the studio, colour becomes a catalyst to induce an increased emotive state. The collision of mark-making, adding and subtracting, triggers memory; a new porthole evolves.

“Through my work, I hope to transcend the viewer to another realm, a realm in which they enter a place of their own internal landscape.”