Aura Wooldridge is a South African artist and has always found an escape from reality in anything creative. She was born in 1990 in Johnannesburg, South Africa and currently resides in Cape Town, where she paints as often as she can. Aura completed advanced art courses at Ruth Prowse Art School and has an undergraduate degree in History of Art and Anthropology from the University of South Africa. Aura has had a residency at Le Blue Art Gallery based in Somerset West as of last year and she will also exhibit virtually in Italy and Spain. Aura has dabbled with various mediums; including bleach and ink, acrylic, oil, watercolour. She is currently working with fluid art as the results are unpredictable. These art pieces are typically abstract.
Her work is purely based on emotion, and the medium she uses allows her to lean into areas of her ever-evolving identity and skill that make her uncomfortable – thereby consistently challenging her to be a better version of herself; whether artist, sister, friend, lover or daughter. On this journey of unknowns and self-growth she has discovered that rather to conform, it is far better to shatter the mould that she has “defined” by herself. This is expressed in her work. The subject matter of her pieces ranges vastly, sometimes a subject can be distinguished and other times not. Aura does not paint with a plan in mind, other than the colours she chooses and allows herself to be swept up in the moment and what it creates. Key concepts behind her artworks are: redemption, resilience, liberation, justice for herself and others, and a recognition of who she is. An acknowledgment of how she feels, as well as a means of rediscovering her identity and working through an own personal trauma. She has learnt that when she silences herself, and these emotions and ideas are left unexpressed, it is at a detriment to her well-being. As she states, “my pieces are a physical manifestation of my ideologies, emotions and I literally breathe life into them”.