Biography

Tamara De Maine (née Sladojević) was born in Zenica, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina). Fleeing the civil war, she sought refuge in Australia in 1995. There, she discovered in art a language for feelings that words could not express.

In 1998 her work was selected for the permanent collection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at Palais Wilson, Geneva. She later studied Visual Art at Queensland University of Technology, graduating in 2001.

The following year she received First Place in the Evolution Art Prize (Wollumbin Foundation) for a collaborative interactive video installation. That work led to OKO T, an artist collaboration presenting interactive video at festivals and venues in Australia and abroad — among them Big Day Out, Lowlands in the Netherlands, Fuse in Brussels, and Utopia NYE at Sydney SuperDome.

Seeking a quieter life, she settled in the coastal town of Agnes Water. In 2010 she exhibited an interactive installation at Bundaberg Regional Gallery, where she also facilitated drawing classes, and began printmaking at the Brisbane Institute of Art.

To deepen her drawing and painting, she trained in classical drawing at the London Atelier of Representational Arts in 2013, then studied painting at the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney in 2014. On her return she established life-drawing sessions in Agnes Water.

In 2016 she was awarded first prize in the painting category at the 1770 Art Show, and undertook a ceramics residency at Quixotica in Cooroy, where she was introduced to wood-firing.

She now works from her studio in Agnes Water, Queensland, across painting, ceramics, printmaking, and video, and has facilitated workshops and made work for private collections.