Maria del Carmen is a Chilean-born, Sydney-based artist whose work moves between abstract landscapes and figurative paintings, guided by intuition and emotion. Her imaginary sceneries explore the intimate relationship between the natural world and the inner self, a connection she returns to again and again as both subject and source.

There is a rawness to Maria's practice that recalls Frida Kahlo's conviction that art should render reality, not escape it. Working across large expressive canvases and small ink works on paper, Maria's paintings are never decorative. They are honest. Each work emerges from a deep desire to express the female freedom she finds in nature, and the healing that comes with it.

Her creative process is transformative by nature. Negativity becomes resilient energy; fear becomes beauty. In making the work, Maria confronts what lies beneath and brings it to the surface as pure expression.

This is especially present in her figurative paintings, where women exist within and alongside the natural world. The ocean, the land, the universe are not backdrops but active forces. Maria sees women as powerful beings, capable of healing not only themselves but future generations, by breaking cycles of unhealthy attachment and cultivating a deeper relationship with the feminine. Her paintings embody that belief, and carry it forward.