Portfolio 2021:
There is no more joy than heeding curiosity’s whisper and making purely for making’s sake: a tonic to punctuate life’s chaos.
A stolen moment.
A “What if?”
Sunlight dappled
warming closed lids.
Molten.
Isolation Daze
This artwork portrays the chaos and complexity of emotion I experienced during COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. An existential crisis played out in the comfort of my own living room, distilled.
On Dusk
The heady musk of twilight hangs like syrup in the air; Day’s heat ticks away.
Rose stands expectant, her beauty muffled in the cerulean light. She has been forgotten. One by one the lights go out.
Yet her perfume lingers: like a fleeting memory, a riff of chords you can’t quite place, the taste of summer on your tongue.
She turns drunken harlot for Night’s caress. She basks - tingling - in cool anonymity, until the kiss of dawn warms her velvet petals once again.
Detached
What is it I have to say? The truth is, I don’t know.
My mind: a cacophony of thoughts (a neverending stream);
thunderous in my waking hours and spilling into dream.
I have to trust that if I shoot – somehow, someday – my melody will start to play.
From My Camera
From my Camera offers an intimate glimpse into the everyday life of our family, interwoven with technical experimentations and artistic imagery made in rare moments of maternal solitude.
The series was made daily over the course of one month, as a deeply personal exploration into whether it’s possible to strike a balance between the demands of mothering small children, the parental drive to document them and a compelling desire to escape the chaos and lose – or rediscover – oneself in photography.
The outcome? An idiosyncratic collection of images that offer a glimmer of hope that the scales might just be starting to tip.
These are a sample of the 70-odd images used to create a traditional dry-mount family album that can be enjoyed and passed down through future generations.
The final manifestation of this portfolio is a far cry from my original concept: a series of composite self portraits, daydreaming away the mundane tasks that cause me daily frustration as a mother of young children.
I loved the idea but, as time passed, I increasingly felt it would be self-indulgent and ungrateful to describe our lives in such a way.
So, while the underlying subject here remains very similar – processing my internal conflict between the demands of everyday and a yearning for creative space – I set out to embrace and celebrate the chaos and see where it took me instead.
While I still feel like I haven’t found the right balance, it’s deeply satisfying to see the cross-over between creative expression and captured moments so evident in this series. My greatest hope is that I’ve created something meaningful that my family will treasure now and in years to come.
Shutter Painting
Born out of frustration, which gave rise to curiosity, this portfolio pushes beyond the literal to capture the essence of various landscapes. Using shutter painting and multiple exposures, these images aim to transport the viewer to another place; one they perhaps cannot quite put their finger on.
A windy beach, falling autumn leaves, a well-trod bush track; each has been approached with slightly different strokes in an attempt to convey how I responded to each scene as I stood within it. The resulting distillation of colour and contrast; movement; texture; is an invitation to embark on a visual journey and respond with your own interpretation of each image.
