A look at the making of wayi (to hear), 2023. My new commission for ACCA (Australian Centre for Contemporary Art) in the exhibition Between Waves with film documenting the process and final installation, created by the incredible Beau Stevens.
Read MoreWomen's Art Prize Tasmania
It is an overwhelming honour to be announced as a finalist in the Women’s Art Prize Tasmania 2021 with my image Country is Calling, 2021.
Artist Statement:
Georgia stands on nuenonne Country, calling in our ancestors.
Their presence appears as a bird, swooping and surrounding her. They are talking and we listen.
As we exist here on the sand our ancestors have travelled for tens of thousands of years, we heal. We heal our family, we disrupt our colonisation, we unbury the past and we form new pathways forward. Georgia through education and activism, I through art and research, both of us through story.
In her left hand she holds an animal skin and in her right, a shell necklace, these are items of reverence and belonging that tie her to culture. This is what we look like now. Strong and sensitive nuenonne women raising the voice of contemporary Aboriginal Tasmanians on an island that often feels isolated with a reflection that often feels distorted.
Scarring Group Exhibition 2020
Scarring, 2020
A collaborative exhibition including emerging Indigenous Tasmanian artists Josh Prouse, Reece Romagnoli-Townsend and Cassie Sullivan.
We develop scarring, wanted and not.
Long before the colonial structures began, scarification was a language used to tell our story. Our history. Our lineage. Us. Marks across skin told the depth of our experience, our sorrow, our aging, our identity.
The erosion of lutrawita culture began with the invasion of others. A systematic tearing apart of families results in our wounds remaining open, still, we try and heal. Our scars are stuffed with generations of pain. Sutures on openings. Openings on sutures. A mess, of sorts.
We use materials to give our scars shape and to give our voices clarity. Ink. Metal. Fabric. We use our hands to listen to our ancestors and mark our own place in a history documented to forget us.
From history to now and back again, we follow the shape of our scars.
Scarring, 2020 is a collaborative group show, entrenched in a colonial building on contested land. The blak artists grapple with deconstructing the gallery space, moving away from a traditional wall hang and in doing so turning works into cohesive sculptures with their own ethereal energy. The once predominantly white space has been turned into a mutual and supportive area where the artists hope to open a conversation about space, safety and identity; their voices stronger together than individually.
This exhibition is held across lutruwita (Tasmania) Aboriginal land, sea and waterways. We acknowledge, with deep respect the traditional owners of this land, the palawa people.
The palawa people belong to the oldest continuing culture in the world. They cared and protected Country for thousands of years. They knew this land, they lived on the land and they died on these lands. We honour them.
We pay our respects to elders past and present and to the many Aboriginal people that did not make elder status and to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community that continue to care for Country.
We recognise a history of truth which acknowledges the impacts of invasion and colonisation on Aboriginal people resulting in the forcible removal from their lands.
Our Island is deeply unique, with spectacular landscapes with our cities and towns surrounded by bushland, wilderness, mountain ranges and beaches.
I stand for a future that profoundly respects and acknowledges Aboriginal perspectives, culture, language and history. And a continued effort to fight for Aboriginal justice and rights paving the way for a strong future.
A collaboration by Blak Arts Collective.
Media: UTAS
Our-Self Group Exhibition 2020
Refraction, 2019
Wandering into the dissonance between reflection and truth. Transitions from you to I and back again. I’m unsure I ever really wake from this ruminating state. We exist as refractions and reflections of light.
These large-scale prints explore the intimacy and uncertainty of the human experience. It intends to ask whether the way we see ourselves can ever really be the truth.
Available for sale in the STORE
Narrative, 2020
Ink on paper.
My thoughts, given over to you, to see their reflection change by your influence.
Please feel free to read the works and take home a piece that resonates with you.
Our-Self presents the work of Studio 227 artists Rosie Hastie, Brooke Stevens, Bree Sanders, Cassie Sullivan and Sarah Williams. We are exploring the notion of ‘self’ and what we know to be true about the human experience. With diverse processes and varying interpretations of what we are encompassing, Our-Self is stretching out the intimacies and vulnerabilities and seeing what story forms. The works span from large scale prints, to graphite on paper and small scale sculptural pieces.
‘We don’t exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand.’ - Alain De Botton
Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize 2019
In 2019 I was lucky enough to get through as a finalist to the Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize.
I was completely honoured to get through and see my image exhibited alongside incredibly talented artists. The award was taken out by the well deserving and long time inspiration Tamara Dean.
Many thanks to Moran, the judges and other beautiful photographers I met along the way. I had the honour of doing an artist talk during the exhibition, thanks to everyone who came along, asked interesting questions and engaged with the works.
This image is close to my heart and home. It tells the story of an ordinary day in the depths of Tasmanian Winter. The need for chores to be done, whatever the weather. The ability for an individual to wear many coats, to express uniqueness, to feel comfortable in expression.
Thanks for Your Time, 2018 | Panopticon | Dark MOFO
Thanks for Your Time, 2018
Durational performance, ink on paper
I am spending time repeating myself in order to change my brain.
I am repeating myself in order to change.
I am repeating myself.
I am.
Exploring the theme of time:
The original iteration of this project was a simple performance of holding a sign that said ‘Thanks for your time’. Through working within the space and engaging with what it means to take not only take time to create as an artist but take the time of your audience the idea formed into another iteration. Thanks for your time became a durational performance, 15 hours (3×5 hour blocks) where one artist covered the surface of the space in thumbprints, one print at a time. For the audience, the performance could be mesmerising, it could challenge people’s own use of their time, their patience and their concentration. For the artist, the performance was internal, meditative and a practice in using time to effectively shape who she is as a human.
Artist’s thought:
“People tap on the windows, violently, with intrigue, casually, insistently, it makes me feel a mix of vulnerable and interesting, overwhelmed and distracted. I put my headphones in and start the five-hour session with meditation. It gives me some autonomy to ignore the tapping, people think I can’t hear them but I can. The comments are entertaining but at first I let them dictate my pattern. I quickly realise that this is not the point, the work is not meant to be interactive. I become more and more focused, letting the pattern play itself out by feel.
If I get distracted or overwhelmed or my knees start to hurt I come back to breathing, I recant beliefs about myself that will help me change my neural pathways. They are simple; “I am enough” seems to take up the length of the floor before I look up again.
I let thoughts come in. How much like social media is sitting in this curated space while people peer in the window making judgements but having no idea what’s really going on in my world. I think about how fingerprints are so recognisable, clearly linked to out identity yet they are changeable, adaptable, can be interfered with. I wonder if my thumbprint is changing while I do this work and hope that my identity is alongside it.”
Word mapping.
