Artist who ‘lives and breathes’ art set to open doors to home studio

Behind the wall of artisan masks, past the sculptures of men with expressions carved from clay, is a house flooded with colour and creativity. The Waroona house’s curious doors will open at the weekend as artist Carmen Tyrer welcomes the community into her home studio and creative space on Sunday November 24. Inside her home there are paintings, sculptures, statues and more — with Tyrer working in a range of media during her decades-long career as an artist. Growing up in Chile, Tyrer said some of her earliest memories were of creating artwork. From melting the plastic sticks of lollipops into beads for crafts, to drawing the faces of those around her, knitting wool together and getting lost in painting had always been a part of her life, she said. Moving to Australia in 1985 aged 32, Tyrer continued to expand her skill set, taking up ceramics classes in between working as a dentist After getting her own kiln, Tyrer started creating and selling the facades of houses, but felt she was missing something in her home. “I had nothing of me,” she said. “I needed to surround myself with my culture somehow, so I made these masks.” Tyrer took to the library to explore masks from the different cultures across Central America, doing her best to recreate the historic faces from pictures in books. “You carry who you are within yourself, you don’t just jump across the ocean and then become something else,” she said. “By making the masks, I just felt I had my culture close to me.” For Tyrer, art cannot exist without the artist, putting a part of herself into everything she creates. When she learned her great-grandmother was a Mapuche shaman, Tyrer said she was compelled to create something to honour this part of her. “I only found out recently because of genealogy studies, but I owed it to her to make something about her,” she said. In all her artwork, Tyrer finds a personal message — even in her bust of former prime minister Bob Hawke, who was in charge of the country as she moved her. Tyrer strives to be different, even using her own type of clay made using ground-up eucalyptus leaves. She said one of the most exciting days of her life was when she was able to retire as a dentist in 2013 and pursue her artwork full-time. “I related it to the day my husband asked me to marry him — it was a similar feeling. I couldn’t believe it — I was free,” she said. “I’m grateful to all the things that have happened over my life where I am now in the situation where I can spend all of my time, 24/7, to do what I want, with nobody interfering.” Tyrer said she wanted to keep sharing her artwork with the world, which was why she is opening up her home for the community to explore. “I like to show people different things because I have such a variety,” she said “I want people to walk inside, have a look and learn that we can do interesting things, and discover this is a new universe.” Her home at 6 Logue Street, Waroona, will be open from 10.30am-4pm. Tyrer said she would be showing people some of her processes, from wool turning to making pendants out of her eucalyptus clay.