Peta Tranquille

Peta Tranquille is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist based in Melbourne. Originally from Perth and raised on farms in the Western Australian Wheatbelt, she developed an early curiosity about place, observation and the subtle details that often go unnoticed.

With a career spanning more than thirty years in cartography, Peta developed a way of understanding the world through systems, structure and spatial logic. While completing her Bachelor of Fine Art, she adapted traditional creative processes to accommodate her experience of aphantasia, developing alternative strategies that became fundamental to her artistic practice.

Working across sculpture, installation, photography, drawing, painting and multimedia, Peta frequently incorporates analogue materials and everyday objects, including film slides, archival photographs, handwritten text and found artefacts.​

​Peta’s practice is strongly informed by her experience of aphantasia—a neurological difference that prevents her from forming mental images or visually re-experiencing memories. Without access to internal imagery, she relies on external systems, objects, photographs and physical processes to reconstruct and understand past experiences. Her artworks often function as visual archives, assembling fragments of information into structures that reflect how memory is pieced together when imagery is absent.

Her background in cartography underpins her use of repetition, modular forms, grids and ordered frameworks. Through these devices, she explores how information is organised, interpreted and retained, as well as the tension between what is known and what remains inaccessible. Analogue materials act as carriers of information, allowing her to externalise what cannot be internally visualised.

During Melbourne’s 2020–21 lockdowns, Peta began documenting her daily walking routes using her iPhone. What began as a simple routine developed into an ongoing investigation of footpaths, markings, surfaces and traces of human activity within the urban environment. This interest reflects her belief that significance can often be found in the overlooked details of everyday life.

Through systems, structures and acts of careful observation, Peta’s work considers how memories are formed, recorded and reconstructed. Her practice explores what remains when mental imagery is absent, revealing alternative ways of understanding, remembering and navigating the world.

2021-2024 - Fine Art Degree, with distinction
Curtin University, WA, During the three years of full-time study I received several Letters of Commendation and was included on the Vice Chancellor's list for academic excellence. View the final project, Absence of Light

2019 - Artspace VCA, Vic, Painting Technique Short Course over 12 weeks

2011 - Fremantle Art Centre, WA, Pastel and Drawing classes over several terms

1997 - TAFE, WA, Study towards a Diploma in Art & Design