Category: Artworks

Doppelganger (Summer Starfish & Leather Jacket 2019) 2023

Saturday the 29th April I applied the last dashes of delek to this sea shroud from a 2019 Worrowing set. The painting can join to the large school of mullet shroud in the marine relics jigsaw. It replaces the leather jacket painting sold to museum director Diana Lorenz in the 2016 joint exhibition with Sally Simpson at the Maritime Museum (Sally also hosted the original marine relic shroud set on her property in Womboin). I allow my shroud sets (exhibited as jigsaws) to interact with each other, communicating over time. I am currently working on marine shrouds from a 2019 shroud set, adding them to the 2016 jigsaw.

Doppelganger (Worrowing Summer 2019 Starfish & Leather Jacket) 2023. Delek, oil, bitumen, silk thread, rabbit skin glue, starfish, and leather jacket on canvas. 44 x 61 cm $760 framed. On exhibition in Gerringong Town Hall Sep 12-14th

Winner Halloran Art Prize – JBMM

Thanks to Michael at Shoalhaven Picture Framing (see SCR article image)

Respect This Place (After Uncle Laddie) 2022. Pipe clay, wattle gum, sap, aquarelle and billabong on paper. 37 x 55 cm unframed SOLD

The selection of materials for ‘Respect This Place (After Uncle Laddie)’ 2022 communicate my personal response to the Halloran collection (HC). As a local woman growing up in Vincentia, like my mother before me, I have a deep sense of belonging to this place shared with Aboriginal friends and mentors. A significant mentor, Uncle Laddie, gifted me the pipeclay featured in this artwork and his words and handwriting ‘respect this place’ inspired the work and feature on an object in JBMM. This work pays tribute to Laddie’s lifelong work as a cross-cultural teacher and activist based at JBMM.

The paper support was soaked and stained c.10 years ago in the billabong near my childhood home. It is a place frequented by both my mother and her brothers and my siblings and I as children. I feel the presence of my ancestral spirits here. My grandparents, Keith and Gloria Sheehy purchased land from Warren Halloran in c.1955 across from the creek that feeds this billabong. The HC features maps recording Warren’s ownership and sale of the land that created Vincentia village. I chose to represent the instruments of nautical navigation and terrestrial surveying in the HC, as they are symbols of the colonisation and subsequent land sales in Vincentia.

In the Shoalhaven, colonisation began with Alexander Berry pictured in ‘Respect This Place’ using his sextant from the HC. His body merges with the graphometer to become the instrument of colonisation. His words ‘For many years I have reaped my harvest’ also feature in JBMM. Opposing Berry is a stylised representation of an Aboriginal hunter inscribed on a whale tooth from the HC. Cupping the graphometer on the left is a drawing of the breast plate worn by ‘Budd Billy’, who also featured in the JBMM photograph of a local corroboree pictured.

Spring Kookaburra triptych

I have completed a triptych for SeeChange2020 building upon the central shroud created at Worrowing in 2017 (refer to earlier posts). The kookaburra was found deceased at the Worrowing shroud site. Cost is $2400 as a triptych. This work was exhibited at the Art Springs for Wildlife Exhibition.

MagpieConstellation

Individual works can be sold separately.

Rising 2020 bitumen, oil, gouache, aquarelle, gesso and rabbit skin glue on canvas 80(h) x 45(w) cm SOLD

Magpie1

Deceased (Worrowing Winter 2017 Kookaburra) 2020 bitumen, oil, gouache, aquarelle, gesso, kookaburra and rabbit skin glue on canvas 66(h) x 73(w) cm SOLD

Magpie2

Falling 2020 bitumen, oil, gouache, aquarelle, gesso and rabbit skin glue on canvas 45(h) x 80(w) cm SOLD

magpie3

NOW Contemporary Art Prize

My work Day and Night is a finalist in the NOW prize.

DayNight

Day and Night (Monaro Autumn 2011 Cockatoo and Flying Fox) 2019. Cockatoo, flying fox, silk stitch, bitumen, oil, caput mortuum, pipeclay and rabbit skin glue on canvas. 101 x 162 cm. $3280.

Artist Statement

Road boundaries kill animals, like this flying fox and white cockatoo in Canberra 2011. I dissolve the boundary between animal subject and art object by placing decomposing animals on canvas to infest the weave. After documenting their disintegrated remains, I steep the rancid cloth in vinegar and hang it in the elements to cure before stretching onto a wooden frame. I seal the evocative bodily stain or shroud with hot rabbit skin glue and spend weeks, months, or years, in its presence. In 2019, I felt drawn to this shroud and its accompanying photographs of decayed subjects, my two younger children running in a field, their loyal father in his cowboy hat, and two white cockatoos watching from dead trees in the dry Monaro. I apply the bitumen and oil of Europeans to depict the dead creatures, and sacred pipeclay given by a recently deceased Aboriginal mentor negotiates the ground.

Bherwerre 11

Bherwerre11The final of the twelve painted panels completed in the new year featuring a spotted pardalote in front of its muddy bank home and the silvereye in the wattle. Both photos referenced were taken by Chris Grounds. Today I joined the other Bherwerre wetland artists on a wetland walk guided by Plant specialist Rebecca and bird specialist/photographer Chris. It was lovely and inspiring.

The Other Art Fair Sydney

New Works for the Art Fair:
‘Shadow Self (Winter Currawong and Ringtail Possum)’ 2016-17. Currawong, ringtail possum, bitumen, oil, aquarelle and rabbit skin glue on canvas. 66 (w) x 165 (h) cm. SOLD
‘Death Hatch (Spring Port Jackson Shark)’ 2017. Port Jackson shark, bitumen, oil, delek and rabbit skin glue on canvas. SOLD
‘Body Map (Spring Stingray)’ 2017. Stingray, bitumen, oil, delek and rabbit skin glue on canvas. 88 (w) x 73 (h) cm. SOLD