From France to Here, 2022
Paintings within paintings
Small Painting Prop works
Artist Statement for 'From France to here'
Recovered unnamed files felt like miracle treasures. Following a series of computer and backup failures resulting in the loss of many files including loved photos, I felt compelled to honour in paint some of the experiences reminded to me by some recovered photos.
With my interest in the theatre and physicality of playing in my painting process, I married two ideas. My new series of works commenced by painting twenty small painting props of memories and visions referenced from a batch of photos taken during my time living in France in 2017. Some of the props are quite derivative of a photo, others loosely so and some are compilations referenced from a few photos mashed together. I then moved these painting props around in my studio space, on the walls, on the bookshelf, on the floor and even sitting on a chair ready for inclusions within painting scenes. The painting props become three things: small works within themselves; tools of process; and reference materials all in one.
This series of new paintings within paintings directly follows on from my exhibition of 2021 at Project Gallery 90, ‘Paintings within Paintings’. I continue to reference my paintings back within my new works. Only this time, I don’t reference previous works of mine, rather, I paint in the small painting props created within this series. In one work within this series, I have painted a painting in a painting within a painting in another painting within the painting I am painting.
This series also directly follows from my exhibition ‘Cycle’, at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2022. From that exhibition a particular work has kicked off this new series. It is an interior of the studio space I am working within. My plan for it and new works in this series was to play with the materiality of paint leaving much of the yellow ground present in the work and incorporating a variety of mark making techniques including painted lines drawn back within the works. These forms of mark making keep me engaged in the painting process. Only after the completion of my initial work did I see the unconscious reference to Matisse’s ‘The Red Studio’, hence I titled my work ‘The Yellow Studio’. With this loose reference to this French artist, it seemed apt that the photos I referenced for my props for this series were from my French experience. It also seemed timely to be weaving elsewhere into the now, with the possibilities of being elsewhere feasible again.
Building from several series, an iterative and playful process has given life to the works for this exhibition ‘From France to here’ where ‘The Yellow Studio’ is renewed.
Recovered unnamed files felt like miracle treasures. Following a series of computer and backup failures resulting in the loss of many files including loved photos, I felt compelled to honour in paint some of the experiences reminded to me by some recovered photos.
With my interest in the theatre and physicality of playing in my painting process, I married two ideas. My new series of works commenced by painting twenty small painting props of memories and visions referenced from a batch of photos taken during my time living in France in 2017. Some of the props are quite derivative of a photo, others loosely so and some are compilations referenced from a few photos mashed together. I then moved these painting props around in my studio space, on the walls, on the bookshelf, on the floor and even sitting on a chair ready for inclusions within painting scenes. The painting props become three things: small works within themselves; tools of process; and reference materials all in one.
This series of new paintings within paintings directly follows on from my exhibition of 2021 at Project Gallery 90, ‘Paintings within Paintings’. I continue to reference my paintings back within my new works. Only this time, I don’t reference previous works of mine, rather, I paint in the small painting props created within this series. In one work within this series, I have painted a painting in a painting within a painting in another painting within the painting I am painting.
This series also directly follows from my exhibition ‘Cycle’, at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in 2022. From that exhibition a particular work has kicked off this new series. It is an interior of the studio space I am working within. My plan for it and new works in this series was to play with the materiality of paint leaving much of the yellow ground present in the work and incorporating a variety of mark making techniques including painted lines drawn back within the works. These forms of mark making keep me engaged in the painting process. Only after the completion of my initial work did I see the unconscious reference to Matisse’s ‘The Red Studio’, hence I titled my work ‘The Yellow Studio’. With this loose reference to this French artist, it seemed apt that the photos I referenced for my props for this series were from my French experience. It also seemed timely to be weaving elsewhere into the now, with the possibilities of being elsewhere feasible again.
Building from several series, an iterative and playful process has given life to the works for this exhibition ‘From France to here’ where ‘The Yellow Studio’ is renewed.
Exhibition notice