Magda Cebokli

 'Artist Interviews' a series of interviews with established artists on what keeps them going and what are some of the highs and lows of their careers. 

Thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Installation view: curated exhibition Sky Lab, Counihan Gallery, Brunswick Melbourne, 2015.

Tell us a bit about your practice and you, the artist, that you are comfortable to share.

I’m a mid-career painter, based in Melbourne, working mainly with acrylics. I’ve been developing my art practice since graduating from RMIT with a MA (Fine Arts) in 2001 and now work full-time in my studio space in Rivers Studios in West Melbourne.

I’d describe my paintings as hard-edged, non-objective/abstract works with a strong reductionist bias. They’re often monochromes, but I’m increasingly working with colour. I tend to work with small differences, simplified form, repetition and a restricted palette. I try to strip away the extraneous and present my ideas in the clearest and simplest form.

My original training was in scientific research and as a result the values that underpin my work are related to and reflect the Law of Parsimony or as it's more commonly known, Ockham's Razor. This says that the simplest explanation is most likely to be the 'right' one/ the most plausible/ the most 'beautiful'.

My work reflects my interests in a number of areas. I’m interested in exploring light and edge as the building blocks of visual experience, the movement between the binaries of light and dark and the interaction between light and the structure of space. Probability, chance, predictability, the search for pattern are also themes that capture my attention.

I tend to work in series. Although each painting needs to stand on its own feet, it also has a place in a developing discourse. My curiosity gets aroused by a visual observation (usually of a small thing) and I start to wonder ‘what is it about this that got my attention?’ Exploration of this question eventually translates into a group of paintings, each painting addressing some question or issue that was suggested by a previous one.

Magda Cebokli, studio photo.

What keeps you Going? (Given that ongoing challenges, it seems, have affected the artworld over recent years.)

I often wonder what does keep me going!

It’s the satisfaction of producing something tangible, that exists in the real world, that has a presence. The satisfaction of synthesising an idea into a physical form. The exploration of an idea and its expression. The excitement of solving the problem of how to compose and make something both beautiful (aesthetically pleasing) and cognitively engaging. The hope of sharing this with a viewer. The pleasure of making.

Making art is like driving a two-horse cart: one horse, called concepts, is about ideas, meaning, content. The other, called process, is about making the work, materials, your art practice. Both equally important but not always pulling at the same rate. The trick is to learn to make them work as a team. I enjoy this challenge.

The studio is a ‘room of one’s own’ where one is accountable to no-one but oneself. Ideas can be followed, work attempted, questions asked and solutions perused and pursued at one’s leisure, and pleasure.

This makes up for working in the isolation and cold of that studio, the difficulties of getting one’s work up on a gallery wall, of finding the words to wrap around the paintings, the frustration of finding and keeping a studio space.

There is the strong drive to continue making work: for exhibition, to finish a series, to share my thoughts with an audience, to be seen, to make.

Installation view: solo exhibition Latin Squares, Langford Gallery Melbourne, 2016.

What is a personal achievement for you that you would like to share.

The whole path to becoming an artist has been challenging. Art wasn’t on the curriculum at my school, so I had no exposure to its possibilities. After school, I headed to university to study Psychology, working first in research and then in mental health. Art was not on the horizon.

However, a pivotal encounter was with one of John Olsen’s murals while visiting a private home. It sparked an immediate, profound interest. This experience initiated a period of my visiting galleries, looking at art, and eventually exploring painting. I didn't have any grand expectations of turning it into a career; back then, I still believed in the myth that artists possessed a rare, innate gift that you were either born with or you weren't.

That mindset shifted when I saw Fred Williams’ Waterfall Triptych. It was a second ‘lightning strike’ moment. I recognised that this was a language I could and wanted to speak.

I skilled up as best I could, put together a portfolio and applied to art school. I was accepted but this didn’t come off because my partner got a work transfer to New York for 3 years. Instead, I got an art education via MOMA, the Metropolitan, the Guggenheim and night classes in art history and painting at State University of New York. It was a wonderful experience to learn via direct exposure to the originals rather than via books. Eventually returning to Australia, via several years in Hong Kong (and an exposure to Asian art), I made it into full-time art school – some 8 years after I first hoped to get there.

I succeeded in getting into the art world, I have a studio, I paint full-time, I get to exhibit.

Installation view: solo exhibition The Essence of Space,
Nancy Severs Gallery, Canberra 2023.

Conversely art is not a constant rosy path. What is a challenging experience you have had in art and how did you come to terms with it?

Getting to art school in itself was a challenge, getting work onto gallery walls is another. This latter has got significantly more difficult in recent years as an increasing number of established galleries have closed or changed to different models of operating. It’s also increasingly difficult to get galleries interstate to take on one’s work as they are putting their resources into their current stable of artists rather than taking on new work. What options does this leave – the digital world, on-line exhibiting?

Finding (and keeping) a suitable, affordable studio is a recurring issue. The insecurity of not knowing how long you can be there – eyewatering rental increases – sudden dispossession due to new owners taking over the building – subletting on a temporary basis – all highly destabilising experiences. After my last displacement it took some 8 months to find a new space at River Studios. Here I have great and secure tenure, a well-equipped space big enough to work on more than one piece at a time – important since some paintings can take months to finish.

BUT the building is up for redevelopment in 2029, and then there will be some 70 artists compelled to relocate! River Studios is managed by Creative Spaces a program run by the City of Melbourne’s Art & Culture Branch. Will they be able to find a suitable, affordable successor?

Alhambra Blue, 2026, acrylic on linen, 101 x 101 cm.

How do you think the art world and/or the artists life could be improved? For example, many artists work multiple jobs, and an artist often has to wear many ‘hats'.

A number of issues come to mind – I’m not sure how they will be resolved.

I’ve already mentioned that economical long-term studio space is critical for the art to be produced.

The demise of art reviews and critiques in mass publications has cut down the exposure to a broader public and limited the art gaze to people who are already committed and actively following the arts. I find this disappointing as it shuts out rather than encourages people outside the art world to go to galleries.

Information is readily circulated about the blockbusters and these attract crowds. These same people don’t get informed about what’s on in the smaller galleries and these are the places most local artists exhibit and rely on making their reputation in.

The art scene is thus becoming increasingly self-referential and alienated from the general public, and the general public is becoming alienated from what is being currently made in its own back yard ... except for when it arouses socio-political controversy and then it’s open slather.

And then there’s AI …

In studio: not yet titled work in new Road Series, 2026,

acrylic on linen, 42 x 21 cm.