UNLEARNING- Opening reception @ Happenstore - Sunday, June 17th, 6-8pm
Please contact the shop directly for any pre-sale information 0438212231
Unlearning explores the figure in spatial and emotional realities and allows repeat patterns to intermingle with the compositions and make sense of the space for the figure and for me. The themes I explored in earlier work were ornamentation, femininity and motherhood. While they became emotional landscapes that questioned relationships, expectations and what it means to be a woman and a mother, I had not yet had many of the vital experiences that contributed to this new body of work.
In a physical sense, Unlearning very specifically picks up where I left off in my works on canvas by including printed textile as a base layer to the compositions. Having now worked as a textile designer for 13 years, and using my own fabrics in this art I've created a new dialogue between the printed and the painted that was not possible in earlier art. Designing fabrics commercially has had me abandoning various approaches to my art making simply because of the printing restraints of manufacturing. I therefore took on the role of 'reducer'- I reduced what I knew of representing a flower, for instance, to fewer parts and colors. In essence I was unlearning how I had spent years representing the world around me through painting and drawing. This work seeks to unlearn both processes and rather build a more authentic perspective of making art.
In some ways I have simply introduced one way of making art to another, perhaps no differently than introducing hopes to realities or imagined to actual. It is those visual tensions between the repeat and the spontaneous that captivated me, as well as the inner narrative of reconciliation that occupied my mind. I hope with Unlearning that I have erradicated my fear of making something either too decorative, or too emotional, but simply honored the diverse inspirations in whatever form they ask to be represented.
