Visual Art Fragments of Redlands: the ocean pandanus

Since graduating from Queensland College of Art in 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Tamika Grant-Iramu has continued to develop her practice in relief printmaking. Inspired by the environment of her immediate natural surroundings, Tamika’s practice focuses on the minute areas of native flora, bringing into focus these aspects that often go unnoticed. The relationship she has with the process of relief print carving corresponds to the strength and fluidity of her natural environment, the constant randomness that arises from the directions in which she carves allows a newly discovered forms to grow. There is an importance in the connection between the artistic process and herself as the medium, as it allows a new dialogue to come into play. As a landscape artist, Tamika immerses herself in the natural topographies she encounters, using relief print caring as a tool to capture her visceral impressions of place.

Since shooting to prominence in 2018 as one of the finalists for the prestigious 2018 ‘Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Awards’ (NATSIAA), Tamika was shortlisted for the 2019 Haugesund International Festival for Artistic Relief Print at the Haugesund Art Gallery (Norway), a Onespace Gallery feature artist in the 2019 Cairns Indigenous Art Fair where she received the Emerging Artist Award and was a Finalist in the 2020 National Works on Paper Awards, Mornington Peninsular Art Gallery, Victoria. She was an Australia Council Grant Recipient (Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Panel) in 2019, which funded a collaboration with nationally celebrated artist Brian Robinson showcased in a stand-out exhibition entitled, A Carved Landscape: Stories of Connection and Culture in 2021. Tamika has undertaken a major public art project at Herston Hospital STARS in 2020, collected by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and both regional and university galleries.