Miranda Hine From the window at Coorparoo during floods

Peering into Miranda Hine’s small-scale painting simulates the experience of peering out – something the artist did at the window of her Brisbane apartment one wet night, as floodwaters rose around her.

‘I woke up to a strange pink glow outside from thick sheets of rain. This is the view from the bedroom window, looking towards the lights of Coorparoo Square. I had never seen the view this obstructed by rain before; it completely collapsed a sense of distance between us and the rest of the city,’ says Hine, a first-time finalist in the Wynne Prize.

A study of the light and atmospherics of urban darkness, From the window at Coorparoo during floods recalls the muted work of Australian tonalists such as Clarice Beckett, who explored the spatial effects of wet and misty environments. Hine says, ‘Capturing a sense of the colour, light, altered depth and the heavy, concentrated rain bouncing off rooves was a technical challenge I wanted to see if I could achieve without being too literal.’