Vis-à-vis

The works presented in this series have origins in my experience of walking with 6500 Gilets Jaunes Protestors in Paris early in 2019.  Recent local and international protests and acts of dissent further inform my ideas.  I have sought to determine creative approaches to visualise tension, dissent, disruption and resistance, traces of which I have encountered face-to-face within the urban environment.

An observer

The residual traces and impacts of daily life, marks that are ground into and written upon the streets and surfaces of the urban environment are habitually photographed.  My images document debris, rubbish, remnants and residue of daily life as the source material for my artworks.  An observer, I am drawn to surfaces that are worn, abraded and those that have been attacked and bear scars, marks and traces.  I have observed flags, placards, barricades, barriers and street furniture draped with banners, and bound with barrier tape as visual tropes of protest and impact.  Such things have provided the basis for my current work – suggestions of the forms, processes and the materials though which to respond to my observations.

A diarist

I produced a series of preliminary collage and assemblage works as notations, sketches.  The pieces used fragments of tissue paper, scraps of plastic, posters, hazard tape and other waste gathered and fixed together quickly and tentatively with tape.  These improvisational works functioned as diarised observations of the streets where recent and historical protest, upheaval and battle had taken place, and where the lives of tourists, residents, the homeless and displaced persons have intersected.

An abstract response

In Vis-à-vis, abstract works have emerged from direct encounters of the street and urban environment. 

My response is comprised of tentative, suspended and freestanding sculptures, large-scale collages pegged, pinned, stretched and bound to ad-hoc armatures, and objects that feature extreme layering, crushing and crumpling.  Ordinary things have been co-opted for sinister means. It is my intention that the content of the work is negotiated, and responses evoked are instinctive.  Through these works I am to conjure a range of sensations fleetingly apprehended through acts of encounter. 

Artist statement 2020.

This project was undertaken in France and Australia, and was supported by the School of Creative Arts and Media, University of Tasmania through the award of the Rosamond McCulloch Studio Residency at Cite International des Arts and the Marie Edwards Traveling Scholarship.