Cynthia Breusch was born and raised in Brisbane and is a graduate of the Queensland College of Art.
Cynthia has held over 35 solo exhibitions around Australia and participated in numerous group and ‘by invitation’ exhibitions in Australia, in Tokyo, and California. Her first international solo exhibition was in California in 2004; a painting from this exhibition was featured on the cover of a major Californian magazine.
Cynthia has won awards for both figurative and landscape work. She was a finalist in the 2022 prestigious Darling Portrait Prize (National Portrait Gallery) and the 2022 and 2018 Salon des Refusés. She is an 8-time finalist in the Portia Geach Memorial Award (Australia’s most prestigious portrait award for female artists) and was a semi-finalist in the 2022 and 2017 Doug Moran Portrait Prize. Her work has been selected in other significant award exhibitions including the Mosman Art Prize, the Paddington Art Prize, Redlands Westpac Art Prize, and Tattersalls Landscape Prize.
Her paintings and drawings are represented in the public collections of the Tweed Regional Gallery, Ipswich City Council, the Rockhampton Museum of Art, as well as the corporate collections of BHP Billiton, News Corp, the Tattersalls Club Brisbane, and the University of Queensland Press. Cynthia’s work is held in private collections throughout Australia, Fiji, NZ, Singapore, USA, UK, France, Germany and the United Emirates.
Her atmospheric paintings convey an other-worldly timelessness and evoke universal themes of meaning and purpose, memory, dreams and the transcendent. As she puts it, “I want to paint invisible things – the figure might be the motif but my real subject is the human condition and the mystery of existence…what lies beyond ordinary perception.”
Themes and titles of Cynthia’s work are influenced by her passion for classical music, ECM jazz artists, books and poetry. She has travelled widely in Europe as well as in the UK, USA, Central America and the South Pacific. These journeys inspire her, as does the World Heritage area of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, where she lives and works.
Solo Exhibitions
26+ in Gold Coast, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart
Group Exhibitions
59+ in Brisbane, Sydney, California, Tokyo.
Major Commissions
1979 – 1991 University of Queensland Press : Paintings & drawings for book jackets 1994 University of Central Queensland Press : 12 paintings for Shadows of Utopia – A History of Australia, Manfred Jurgensen
Select Awards
2022 Finalist, Portia Geach Memorial Award
Finalist, Darling Portrait Award, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Semi-Finalist Doug Moran Portrait Award, Sydney
Salon des Refusés, S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2021 Finalist, Portia Geach Memorial Award, S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2018 Salon des Refusés, S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane (by invitation)
2017 Semi-finalist Doug Moran Portrait Prize, Sydney
2017 – 2013 Finalist, Portia Geach Memorial Award, S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
2016 & 2015 Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane (by invitation)
2014 Gallery Artists, Eva Breuer Gallery, Sydney
Commended Award, Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane
2013 Finalist, Paddington Art Prize, Sydney
2013 – 2011 Tattersalls Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane (by invitation)
2011 Finalist, Portia Geach Memorial Award, S H Ervin Gallery, Sydney
The Drawing Show, Defiance Gallery, Sydney ; The Landscape Show, Defiance Gallery, Sydney
2009 Finalist, Mosman Art Prize, Sydney ;Gallery Artists, William Merrill Gallery, Laguna Beach, California
2007 Finalist – Eutick Memorial Still Life Award, Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery Interaction: Contemporary Photography & Painting , Logan Art Gallery Logan City Council Qld
2006 – 1994 Tattersall’s Landscape Art Prize, Brisbane (by invitation)
Select Collections
Tweed Regional Gallery; Ipswich City Council ; Rockhampton Art Gallery ; BHP Billiton ; News Corp ; University of Qld Press; Tattersall’s Club Brisbane ; Tim Fairfax Collection; St Albans Gold Coast ; Suncorp Collection Brisbane; Tamar Collection,Tasmania. Private Collections in Australia, NZ, Asia, USA, Germany, UK, France & United Emirates
Selected Publications
- Hare+Klein, Meryl Hare, Thames & Hudson Australia, 2020
- Belle Magazine, Feb/March , 2017
- Under Cover, Craig Munro, Scribe (Memoir), 2015
- Sally Browne, Sunday Mail, August 2012 : When Art Beats As One
- Judy Andersen, Gold Coast Bulletin, June 17-18/ 2006 : A Lightness in the Moment • Coast magazine (painting used as cover art), Issue 12, CA, USA, 2004
- Heidi Meyer, Courier Mail, May 11, 2004: Solitary Figures Convey Sense of Longing
- Sue Smith, Courier Mail, June 4, 1998 : World of Her Own
- Australian Vision, Anthology of Australian Paintings & Poetry, Hodder Education, 1997
- Shadows of Utopia – A History of Australia by Manfred Jurgensen, UCQ Press, 1994
- Focus : 17 Australian Women Focus on the Progress of Women in Society Over the Past 100 Years, published by Adelaide Central Gallery, 1994
- Elwyn Lynn, The Australian, The Weekend Review May 22-23, 1993
- Elwyn Lynn, The Australian, The Weekend Review Jan 18 -19, 1992
- Australian Artist Magazine, feature article, Oct 1992