Artists Statement

Deanne Eccles is an Australian interdisciplinary artist whose practice centres on abstract oil painting informed by somatic perception, colour theory, and embodied research. Her work positions colour as an active, sensory intelligence from which form emerges, situating her practice within an expanded understanding of the Colour Field tradition.

Eccles’ approach resists purely analytical or postmodern frameworks, instead privileging direct sensory engagement and embodied response. Australian art expert Dr Maudie Palmer AO has described her paintings as “sentient landscapes,”recognising their capacity to register lived experience, perception, and environment.

For over two decades, Eccles has explored the relationship between body, perception, and environment across painting, performance, movement, music, and writing. While her practice is multidisciplinary, painting remains the central axis of her work. Her sustained research has led to the development of Body Sense Perception and Response, a methodology that integrates somatic awareness, movement-based intelligence, and Goethean colour theory.

After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting) at La Trobe University in 1993, Eccles shifted her focus toward theatre and movement, undertaking extensive training in Body Weather with Japanese artist Min Tanaka and Australian dancer Tess de Quincey. Her movement research has been further shaped by long-term training with practitioners including Helen Sharp and John Howard (Body Voice / Ilse Middendorf), Sophia Polenska, Yumi Umimare, Suzanne Kersten, Dawn Langman, and others.

In 2005–06, Eccles undertook advanced study in Europe, researching Goethe’s theory of colour in Venice and at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. During this period she also lived and worked in Istanbul, engaging with international artists, including Japanese Butoh dancer Tetsuro Fukuhara, whose guidance further refined her understanding of environmental alignment, slowness, and perceptual attention in both movement and painting.

Subsequent periods living and working in Spain, including Andalusia, extended her research into emotional transmission through performance, particularly through flamenco, deepening her inquiry into how affect and sensation might be carried through colour and abstract form.

Returning to Australia, Eccles continued her practice while raising a family, maintaining studio work and exhibiting locally. Since 2017 she has recommitted fully to her professional art practice, presenting major solo exhibitions and participating in national and international group exhibitions and art fairs, including UnFair Milan.

Her work is held in public collections, including the National Library of Australia and La Trobe University.