About

I am an artist from Gadigal Land, Sydney. My work ranges from craft-based sculptural pieces in ceramics or textiles to performative and interactive artworks. I am interested in themes such as the domestic, the ‘feminine’, pedagogy, craft and storytelling. Key visual motifs of my work are plates (non functional/decorative) and textile nests (both intimate hand-sized nests, and large-scale, human-sized nests, through which I do interactive artworks). I am interested in round shapes, as a frame, canvas and from a performative / interactive sense (creating a round space where one can be approached from multiple vantage points).

Bio

I studied at the National Art School, majoring in ceramics. For my final year exhibition, I created a series of large sculptural pieces, for which I was awarded the Ceramics Art and Perception / TECHNICAL Prize (2014). After graduating, I have been working with both ceramics, textiles, and other craft mediums to create sculptures, interactive artworks, installations and performances. My most recent research has been looking at the themes of storytelling, archives, pedagogy, and inclusivity and accessibility. I focused on this in detail during my Master of Fine Arts which I completed earlier this year at Oxford Brookes University in the UK. Here, I created a body of work responding to the Headington LIbrary Early Children’s Book Special Collection. Through my research and art practice, I worked on activating the collection (that used to be a teaching resource, but is now confined by the archival process). I focused on unpacking the delights and dilemmas inherent in historical material, using a combination of ceramics, textiles and interactive installation art as well as curating and exhibiting material from the archives.

Between 2020 and 2022, I worked on an interactive art project focused on creating a magical Australiana. For this project, I developed and ran a series of workshops that focused on generating ideas for, and creating, a magical Australiana creature, landscape or object. This project was partly funded by Waverley Council’s Small Grants.

In 2019, I was awarded the Onslow Storrier National Art School Paris Studio Residency at the Cite de Internationale Arts in Paris to research children’s books and storytelling.

In 2018, I was selected for the Unmapping Program, which was run by the Sydney Story Factory (SSF) in partnership with the MCA. For this, I was commissioned to create an artwork to be installed at the Martian Embassy, in SSF’s base in Redfern. My artwork was called ‘The Nest of Oryx’ and was inspired by character generating workshops conducted with high school aged children.

Since 2017, I have been performing artworks for events that involve collaborative building / art making. I call these performances ‘nest performances’ – as the basis for the artworks are that I work within a large textile ‘nest’, which audiences can add to and interact with. These performances engage communities, children and people who struggle with conventional performance and gallery restrictions. My performance structure is based loosely on the acting term “relaxed performance”, a style of theatre production which is becoming more popular in fringe events where the performance is designed to be more casual to make performances more inclusive for people who have Autism, Sensory Communication Disorder, learning difficulties or Dementia. My artworks are designed to focus on easy to grasp concepts in a safe and creatively engaging atmosphere. Instead of heavy conceptual explanation, I rely on texture, colour themes, costumes and visual motifs to convey context. These modes of visual language transcend the barriers of speech and vocabulary. For further assistance, people can talk with me as the performer or a volunteer that assists me during the process. They can even feel the artwork. I have performed variations of these nest artworks at; Geelong After Dark (2018), Adelaide Fringe/Port Noarlunga Fringe (2019) during my artist in residence at Sauerbier House, Willoughby Arts Biennial (2019), Space Studio (2019, London) and Edinburgh Fringe Street Festival (2019).