Natalie O’Connor is an artist, researcher, and educator. Her experience in the international colour manufacturing industry has heavily influenced her practice. She holds a Bachelor of Education and Master's degree. Most recently, she was awarded a PhD at UNSW for her thesis, The Nature of Redness- A Practice-Based Research into Red Pigments to Offer a New Understanding of Material Colour.
Her practice and thesis are concerned with the permanency and fragility of colour and the technical innovations of the artist’s palette that result from a collaborative dialogue between artists and scientists since the early nineteenth century. She engages deeply with the colour red, investigating its materiality and revealing its inherent qualities of colour.
By understanding and experiencing the delicacies of each red pigment, scientists explore the potential for colour-making in the future. This allows a new potential for contemporary artists to make informed choices with their palettes to interpret the world around them.
O’Connor’s current artwork, The Gol Gol Layer Colour Observations, has developed over the last ten years and consists of a series of experimental observations of a unique landscape in remote Australia. Each installation examines the inherent qualities of each red-coloured artist's pigment in response to the oldest red layer at Mungo, Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, and the changes over time. These installations have been exhibited in numerous public and private galleries, including Woollahra Gallery at Redleaf, Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Charles Sturt University Gallery, Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery, Concordia Gallery and Griffin Gallery, London UK.