Chelsea Arnott is a 25-year-old multimedia artist born and raised in Melbourne. She studied creative fine art at Latrobe University in Bendigo, and then in 2020 attended Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and completed the fine arts honours course. Chelsea recounted that she always wanted to be a writer, but somehow fell into art instead. In her late teen years, she started combining her two passions, resulting in her art pieces including one liners a coloured background.
“Initially I was really into journaling and I just had these two things that were separate. I was like at a school painting, and I was writing these things down in my like spare time and I kind of combined them and was doing this process of like pulling text from my Journal. It felt really organic then because I hadn’t written it with the intent of it being a painting,” she said.
This local creative has had many exhibitions including an online exhibition with a gallery in Sydney and a solo show at Chin Chins restaurant in Flinders Lane. Chelsea primarily works with paints, but also uses textas, crayons, and coloured pencils in her work. As a previous employee at Bunnings, most of her art is done on plywood instead of canvas as she found it more accessible. She now says working on anything else doesn’t feel true to her style.
“I feel a bit weird when I try and paint on a canvas because it doesn't feel like it's mine. Because they
are on board I seal them so they're usually very glossy. You can see the texture but you wouldn't be able to touch it,” she said.
Chelsea does have a distinct art style that is easily recognisable. The sentences and phrases in her work are thought provoking and deep, and the vibrant colours that accompany them are eye-catching. She says that a lot of her one liners are based off her personal experiences with love and relationships, and that the process of coming up with them varies. She says sometimes she will jot down notes in her journal, record a thought on her phone whilst on the tram, or record herself playing on her guitar and then listen back to see if any gems are revealed. Whilst her processes change, the key themes of her work such as love and romance stay the same.
“Historically my work is like bright colour fields and I use obviously a lot of text and then sort of I guess like poetic and talk a lot about things like love, romance, and this idea of dreams and fantasies,” she said.
“To begin with I really did write from experience and I think as time has gone on I sort of realised that while those things were real and true and I was being honest, I'm also living within these clichés and my personal experience of love is impacted by movies, songs, or societal expectations. So I am also really interested in that clash,” she said.
Chelsea’s advice for other artists is to know that what you’re creating is good and that your skills will continue to develop as you keep going. Chelsea says she is currently in a period of transition with her art, but her goal will always be to make her art relatable for audience members. She says she uses a lot of ‘you’ and ‘I’ in her pieces to ensure they are “as insert yourself into as possible”.
“The main things for me are love is important, colours are good, and everyone deserves to enjoy some art,” she says.
www.chelseaarnott.com
Instagram: @chelseaarnott