Ali Constable | Mixed Media Artist | Geraldton, Western Australia
My art practice is established on the exploration of memory, time, nostalgia and identity – particularly how these elements shape our experience of parenthood and the legacy of memory we pass on to our children. I delve into the way our personal histories ripple forward, influencing not only how we parent but how our children form their own sense of self. The present we share with them becomes their past in an instant, and I am drawn by the poignancy of that transition.
Photography has always been central to my work. I was initially drawn to portrait photography due to the absence of photographs of my own childhood. Images serve as memory prompts – fragments filling the gaps where recollection fades or never existed. A single photograph can evoke the scent of my childhood home, Point Samson; the subject of my artist book “Ghost”. Over time, I found myself moving away from formal studio portraiture and toward candid, natural light photography, seeking authenticity in fleeting moments. A photo essay assignment also taught me that vulnerable moments could be shared through images.
My Opa was a photographer, and I inherited his collection – hundreds of images, most without notation or context. I view these photographs as time capsules; a window into the life he lived, stripped of narrative. The people he captured in those paper squares are ghosts. This concept inspired “Ghost”, an object that uses vellum pages to reflect the fragility and distortion of memory. When folded the images blur and merge, echoing how shared experiences can yield vastly different recollections. This work is a tactile journey on how memory is layered, subjective, and often elusive.
My current Year Long Visual Art Project has led into printing life sized portraits of my children – now grown – in foetal poses, part of a journey of translating complex emotional memory into a visual language. My eldest daughter made me a mother, and printing her image in this pose feels like reclaiming something I missed: an ultrasound. The silks movement in the breeze mimics amniotic fluid, creating a peaceful, womb-like atmosphere. Using textiles I can work on a larger scale, printing full sized bodies on fabric lengths, and even include myself in the works if it feels right. This stage of my project was inspired by artist Asa Culver. Cyanotype and photography are both time-based, environmentally sensitive mediums that allow me to record ephemeral moments. Cyanotype requires exposure to sunlight and is affected by environmental conditions – rain, cloud cover, temperature – all of which influence the final image. In Cyanotype 1 below, I laid my subject on silk coated in cyanotype solution. Though the sun was shining, rain immediately began falling, altering the development. Compare that to Cyanotype 2 immediately below Cyanotype 1. Both created under identical conditions, but the image to the right without weather interference, the results are strikingly different. Each print becomes a unique snapshot of time and place, shaped by environmental forces beyond my control.
I document each stage of my process using photography – not only to preserve the work before it evolves, but to serve as a memory prompt for journalling. Cyanotype involves several ephemeral stages before the final print emerges. The only way to capture these fleeting moments – to preserve their ghost – is through photography.
I am drawn to the tactile nature of paper and textiles and have explored combining cyanotype and my photography in mixed media works. My cyanotype practice has always centred on printing my original artwork, and I am inspired by artists who push beyond traditional boundaries. Stephanie Santana incorporates cyanotype portraits of Black women into intricate 3D textile collages. Jane Constable prints cyanotype images onto natural substrates such as leaves, and explores chlorophyll printing, expanding the mediums possibilities.
My screen-printing works were guided by music and memory. Intuitively I let music inspire my process, whilst incorporating preplanned geometric forms.
Each print begins as a freeform landscape of sky and water, with a single pre-cut circle reserved for the sun – later filled with colour. Inspired by a message thread with my children, where we shared Pink Floyd songs from my youth, I revisited the band’s use of geometry and abstraction such as “Dark Side of the Moon”, “Pulse” and “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”. This led me to overlay my prints with silver, using geometric masks to selectively reveal fragments of landscape beneath – mimicking echoes of memory surfacing.
My work is an invitation to reflect, remember and reimagine.
Through photographs, prints and artists books I seek to elevate memory keeping into a tactile, visual experience – bringing hidden archives into the light, into our homes, and giving form to the ghosts we carry.
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