Halinka Orszulok
Halinka Orszulok is an artist living on the South Coast of NSW. Since obtaining her Masters degree from Sydney College of the Arts in 2002, she has regularly shown her work in both group and solo exhibitions. A finalist in the Fishers Ghost, Sunshine Coast and Sulman art prizes, in 2018 Halinka was the winner of the Glover Art Prize with her work ‘Ponies’. In 2019 she was the curator of ‘Uncertain Territory’ at Artbank, an exhibition examining our multi-layered relationship to landscape as a conceptual space. In 2021 ‘False Sense of Security’, at The Lock Up in Newcastle, reflected on the two-edged nature of structures that underpin feelings of safety. Her work has been collected by Artbank, Gadens Lawyers and the University of Wollongong.
“My work is created by painting from photographs which I take at night. Night-time darkness activates the subconscious rendering the familiar strange and introducing elements of the uncanny into the landscape. The paintings deliberately reference the photographic, creating the sense of a stilled moment.
With an interest in examining the role our individual subjectivity plays in our perception of place, my work investigates spaces that blur the line between nature and culture, the domestic and the unhomely, history and the present. Increasingly ecology, cultural identity and ownership are themes that I like to tease out in my paintings. The scenes that I paint engender a sense of displacement, challenging our preconceived ways of reading the landscape.
Inherent in my representations of the landscape is an acknowledgement that there is nothing of the world that is left untouched by humanity in some way and that the word ‘nature’ has been redefined in the age of the Anthropocene. There is also an understanding of the important role that our connection to place has in reflecting and forming who we are.”

On the Ground 100x150cm 2015 $4,600

Lone Rider 105x75cm 2015 $3,200

Bridge, Moonlight, Rising Mist 100 x 150cm $4,600

Ben Bullen Station Oil on canvas 100 x 150 cm $4,500

Heritage Pipe Oil on canvas 75 x 105cm $3,600

Honeycomb Kilns, Newnes Oil on canvas 75 x 105cm $3,600

Lithgow no.1 Dam Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500

Newnes Chimneys Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500

Newnes Coke Kiln Oil on canvas 100 x 150cm $4,500