Paint and pixels

Mardi Cavana is a Sydney based digital designer and self taught abstract artist. After 20 years in the design industry, she made the decision in 2018 to pursue her love of art, choosing to swap pixels for paint brushes. 

Mardi’s art reflects the beauty of imperfection and the suburban life of her upbringing. She finds magic in the mundane; cracked walls, rusty house numbers, textured fences and ripped posters being reference points from which she draws. Applying thoughtful observation and the process of carefully disassembling observed design elements, Mardi reformulates these visual narratives in unexpected ways, portraying them in art form via her use of colour and surface treatments. 

Working directly onto the canvas, Mardi begins each piece with an intended colour palette. She is intuitively guided by the freedom of abstraction, her works often featuring typographical elements, paying respect to her experience working in design.

Awards

Finalist: Bluethumb Art Prize 2021

Exhibitions

Group

2023:
  • October, St Thomas Art and Craft Show, St Thomas Primary School, Willoughby
  • October, A Touch of Pink, Northern Beaches Gallery, Cromer
  • September, Northern Beaches Gallery, Cromer
  • August, Infusion, Crackpot Gallery, Freshwater
  • June, Wanderings in the Art of Abstraction, Art Gallery on Darling, Balmain
  • June, Affordable Art Fair Sydney, Petite Collection, Randwick Racecourse
  • March, Where We Live, DiversARTy, Curl Curl Creative Space
2022:
  • October, St Thomas Art and Craft Show, St Thomas Primary School, Willoughby
  • September, Think Pink, Petite Collection Online Exhibition
  • July, The Other Art Fair Sydney, The Cutaway, Barangaroo
  • June, Birthday Group Show, DiversARTy, Cromer
  • May, Inverell Contemporary 2022, Inverell Art Gallery
  • February, Group Show, 55 Parrots, Bulli
2021:
  • December, The Other Art Fair Sydney, The Cutaway Barangaroo
  • October/November, Spring Forward, No Falling Back, The Wellington Gallery, Waterloo
  • June/July, Group Show, The Wellington Gallery, Waterloo
  • April, Abstraction, The Space Gallery, Rosebery
  • March, The Other Art Fair Sydney, The Cutaway, Barangaroo
2020:
  • May, Inverell Contemporary 2020, Inverell Art Gallery
  • May, Carry On, The Space Gallery  Online Exhibition
  • March, The Other Art Fair Sydney, The Cutaway, Barangaroo (postponed due to COVID)
2019:
  • October, The Other Art Fair Sydney, The Cutaway, Barangaroo

Features

Art Edit Issue 22. Art Mood Feature

Art Edit Issue 23. Artist Feature

Art Edit Issue 24. Gallery Feature

Art Edit Issue 27. Best of TOAF Feature