A day in the life of Zoe Paulsen.

“I remember the feeling of what it was like to live with art,” she says, before sharing the memory that makes it real. “All we ever wanted as kids was a real Christmas tree. A real Christmas tree that we could decorate with tinsel and lights. Mum just said, leave it with me. And so we got home and we were met with a nativity scene by an artist called David Capra. There were bucket loads of sand on the floor. There were Barbie dolls. It was outrageous,” she recalls. 

It’s that type of curiosity and atypical perspective of art, that she brings to the job now. This year’s tenth edition brings a hundred galleries to Carriageworks over five days, and it’s the responsibility of that scale, more than anything else, that keeps her up at night. 

Not that she’s worried about her team’s ability to get it done. “At the the risk of sounding too generic, we have the most amazing team,” she says. “If you’ve got that behind you, you feel that you can do anything.” 

“I love working really hard, but I also think you need a good amount of balance. Life’s all about balance,” she says - an art she knows well, as mum to two boys. “When you’re in the car every morning telling police stories, or fishermen stories, or fireman stories, it really does ground you.” 

Part of the lead-up to the fair is studio visits. Today she’s visiting Karen Black’s studio in Marrickville, one of the artists showing at the fair this year with Sutton Gallery who are Melbourne-based. “I love going to artist studios. You get so much out of it,” Zoe says. 

Karen is preparing works for Sydney Contemporary, which will no doubt draw on the vibrant, gestural language she’s known for. Karen doesn’t offer a reading of her own work, and Zoe doesn’t ask for one. “It’s really up to each individual person to get a sense of what these works mean, and interpret the works themselves,” she says. 

By the time she's back in the car, the day has already covered significant ground. There's one place she's yet to visit: Carriageworks, where in just days, Sydney Contemporary's tenth edition will finally open its doors. 
 
Zoe, alongside Carriageworks' Andrew Demetriou, make the case for experiencing art in person. “The sheer scale of the fair, the number of galleries, the number of works on show, that’s something that cannot be recreated when you’re scrolling on your phone,” she says. “That energy is palpable. You feel it the minute you walk in.” 

The biggest misconception about art fairs, in her experience, is that they’re only for a select few: collectors, insiders, the already initiated. “That’s absolutely not true. It’s a space for everyone,” she says. 

It’s a belief that shows up in the range of the program itself, from a dedicated Works on Paper sector through to its Talks program, brought to life by Mitchell Oakley Smith, who also curated the Vivid Sydney talks program earlier this year.

There’ll be several more visits to Carriageworks before opening night, but one habit Zoe won’t skip is walking the empty fair alone, the day before the doors open. A personal audit of a year’s work. “It’s lovely to have a moment before the madness begins,” she says. 

The real marker of success for Zoe isn’t when the work is done. It’s hidden in the months prior, when Sydney Contemporary reveals itself as a fixed date on the cultural calendar. “That’s how you know you’re part of something so much bigger than a five-day event,” she reflects. 

It’s a fitting return to where she started, at a dinner table, in a house where art was always present. “To live with art,” she says, “is to live with ideas, and it’s to live with curiosity.” 

Enjoy 20% off Art Night, Friday Night and Any Day tickets to Sydney Contemporary with the code BresicWhitney20 - click here to secure yours. Offer ends August 30.