Dagmar Cyrulla

Born 1966, Germany
Bachelor of Arts, Visual Arts
Graduation show: 1987

Artworks in Space YZ

It’s Too Late in the Day, 1987
Lithograph, edition 3/6
26 x 31 cm

I have always been interested in humanity. The scene in It’s Too Late in the Day is in Kings Cross, an area of Sydney that fascinated me and where I would often go to draw.

A dear artist friend of mine, Zai Kuang, once said to me, “without life, Dagmar, there is no art”.

I believe that Zai’s statement reflected my belief that as we live our life experiences, we can feed them back into our art. The reason I mention this concept is because I came from a very sheltered and conservative home environment and attending art school was a huge culture shock for me. It opened my eyes to a wonderful new world of which I had no previous experience. I don’t think I was emotionally present when I first arrived, but at art school I met some wonderful people who helped me grow in confidence and awareness. There were so many more worldly people there that made far more sophisticated work because of their insights.

We shared some subjects with the acting department and I loved this collaboration of creative minds. My dear late friend Bill Mather Brown was a special human being and I will always cherish our friendship.

From memory, my subject selection was always based on my level of comfort with the teachers who taught the subjects I was interested in. For example, I loved painting, but found my lecturer at the time was too aggressive in his language and manner. On reflection, it was actually mild to today’s standards. I selected photography and printmaking taught by Peter Charuk, Graham Marchant, and Andy Antoniou as my teachers.

My daily commutes to campus were shared with Anne-Marie Bateman who is a fabulous artist and friend, and she introduced me to the mesmerising Stevie Nicks from the band Fleetwood Mac. It all seems quite a blur now and was just the starting point to a wonderful discovery of the arts for me.