Yvonne Audette

Yvonne Audette was born in Sydney in 1930. While still in high school, Audette enrolled in evening classes at the Julian Ashton School, Sydney, studying under revered post-war artist John Passmore. She went on to study at the East Sydney Technical College. After completing her studies in 1952, Audette relocated to New York where she studied at the New York Academy of Design and the Art Students League of NeYork. During this pivotal time in the development of abstract expressionism, Audette became deeply engaged with the avant-garde art scene. She met abstract expressionist artists Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Lee Krasner and befriended major figures such as Louise Nevelson, William de Kooning and Clement Greenberg.

In 1955, Audette travelled to Europe, establishing a studio in Florence and later in Milan. While living in Italy, she met with Cy Twombly who made a significant impact on the development of her abstract painting practice. Working with graffiti art at the time of their meeting in 1958, Twombly introduce Audette to the spontaneous mark making in graffiti of the time, an effect that continued to drive her painting practice. She returned to Sydney in 1966.

A retrospective of the works Audette made while living in Italy, Yvonne Audette: Different directions, 1954–1956, was held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in 2007­–08. She lives in Sydney.