About Cynthia

Cynthia Schwertsik’s work unfolds as an investigative practice of poetic response to people and place through performative actions and contemporary storytelling. In this collaborative, multivalent practice, the medium and methods follow the site-specific requirements, the context, and the conceptual ideas. Cynthia captures the simple joy of movement while reflecting on the complexities of contemporary life with humour and an attitude of care.

Before moving to Adelaide Hills in 2012, Cynthia worked as a dancer and performer as well as a multidisciplinary artist in Austria and France, in Australia her practice has shifted with an emphasis on visual arts and the moving image.

Schwertsik has exhibited and performed in numerous solo and group shows. Recent presentations: necessarily transparent commissioned for the Adelaide Film Festival How to Exit a Reality, in 7 chapters, Hahndorf Academy, including an in-progress showing of the new collaboration with Rosina Possingham. Tableau Vivant in collaboration with Dave Laslett, for NEOTERIC, Adelaide Festival 2022: MY NAME, at Port Pirie and Murray Bridge Regional Gallery, through Country Arts SA touring exhibitions program 2022, Bureau d’Exchange, in collaboration with Emma Beech, as part of The New Money, at Adelaide Central School of Art, curated by Andrew Purvis and a further development at The Mill, Adelaide. Desert Pearls, commissioned by the Broken Hill Regional Gallery.

Cynthia presented UTE-ilitarian (2019) as a result of The Guildhouse Collections Project with Flinders University Art Museum, And in the same year, was the first recipient of the Kangaroo Island residency Palace of Production. In 2020 she participated in the HOWL, performance by APHIDS, presented at the Art Gallery of South Australia, in cooperation with Vitalstatistix, as part of the Adelaide Biennial, curated by Leigh Robb, and collaborated with Ray Harris and Jesse Budel in ADHOCRAZY. Other exhibitions include La Strada, Festival of Art in Public Space, participating with ZENTRIFUGE (street performance developed since 1995), Graz, Austria 2018, and #Tulln – Garten der Kuenstler, curated by Wolfgang Giegler, Austria in 2018.

Cynthia was the winner of the International Limestone Coast Video Art Prize 2020 with DOUBLE CHECK #31 and the SALA – Moving Image Award with Peri-Urban Progress.

Schwertsik holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts (2016) from Adelaide Central School of Art. She also earned a Dance Diploma (1990) from TanzQuartier, Vienna and a Diploma of Textile Design (1987) from the Technical College for Art and Design in Graz, Austria.

photo by Dave Laslett