Module 1 Resolved Work:
Title: Nana
Dimensions: 59cms x 42cms
Medium: Charcoal, Ink, Graphite, & Pastel
She grew up in a coal mining family at Rix’s Creek, near Singleton in NSW. The local people of the lands she lived on is Wonnarua. She was born there in 1893. I have a copy of her birth certificate, my father’s mother, yet the last remaining three of her ten children are adamant she was a First Nations woman. There are a few stories that have been passed down the generations that further infer her father, could be different to the one on the certificate. However, Rose Ann or Maud as she was sometimes called, wasn’t one for talking much about her own story, even to her own children. Her story is part of my story, and I’d like to find out her background and honour who she was and where she came from.
In my resolved work, Nana gazes out towards the viewer, ghost like in the foreground, looking, and thinking. She knows things, but doesn’t speak, just looks, deep in contemplation. Her back is turned away from the bridge and the deep crevasse of the scar left from mining. The bridge is small in the background of the work, representing crossing over the pit. It could represent western systems and frameworks, but mostly movement and travel from the present to the past and back again. The pit itself has images of connection to land. It has a depth and darkness that describes something unknown, maybe unknowable. Feathers, leaves, rocks, vines, a bowl, bone, and a symbol of a series of u shapes, that represent generations sitting together and relationships.
The image uses earthy, sombre tones, the charcoal, easily pushed around, captures movement and emotions. The ink also provides fluidity and a slight storminess in the sky. Symbols almost float and swim among the darkened space of the pit, ebbing and flowing with the passing of time in a kind of unstoppable, unfamiliar pattern.
Module 2 Resolved Work:
Title: Segments
Dimensions: 29.7cms x 42cms
Medium: Colour Pencil & Graphite
This is actually not a self-portrait. I used the image for the woman from a previous visual arts exercise. She represents me. There is a duality there. Only half a face is peering out. She is partly hidden. This represents my introversion, and sometimes shyness when it comes to being in the public eye with my music and my art. It also represents things I know about myself and other things I’m yet to discover around my creativity. I used many remnants of previous screen printing, as I like the patterns. The drawing of the print from exercises with the lino cutting tool in the rectangle in the top right, represent the current part of my story, where I am trying new things, learning to master different processes. The marks remind me that in the process of practicing and giving things a go, there is beauty just in that. It appears almost like a text of some sort – a message in the repetitive marks. Below this I have included a torn piece of left over screen print and drawn a spiral on it. It feels to me an ancient symbol that I can travel like a labyrinth – sometimes going in from the outside and out from the inside. It is also a reflection of inspiration coming from the centre and finding contemplation by going in. Floating across the block of orange colour is a plectrum (guitar pick) and represents my songwriting, singing and guitar playing as an intrinsic part of my story. The bulk of the drawing represents Country and landscapes, mountains, rivers, forest, and bush. It honours where I live and draws on my love of nature. The leaves are from one of my nature journals and the feather collected from the place where I live. The animals, plants, rocks and creek here almost always finds a way into the work I create. It grounds me and inspires me.
Module 3 Resolved Work:
Title: Kaleidoscope of Country
Dimensions: 76cms x 57cms
Medium: Colour pencil, Graphite, Ink, Pastel, Ochre & Pen
All my life, music and playing guitar, singing and songwriting have been there, through good and bad times. I am grateful that I have this tool in my life, as I am certain that alongside my visual art, it is an essential pathway to wellbeing and maintaining a balanced life.
Being in nature and the connection I feel around rocks, mountains, trees and creeks is accentuated in this work. Grass trees are one of my favourite plants and often appear in my drawings, or my life in some way. The flowing water of the creek and the figure backpacking in the top right of the work, acknowledges the waters on this property and how they flow and change with the seasons and the changes around me as I travel and move in different directions on my life’s journey.
Faces from the past and present stand for different aspects of self. The Willy Wag tail and its nest reflect the importance family has in my life. Black red-tailed cockatoos frequent the block where I live, calling gracefully as they fly overhead or noisily feeding all day long on their favourite she-oak trees here and are represented by the feather. The figure in the bottom left holding the painting, represents how I interpret the world around me and notes the importance of landscape and belonging to place. Natural places energise me and gives me opportunities to learn, grow and feel alive.
Module 4 Resolved Work:
Title: Core Sample
Dimensions: 26cms x 120cms
Medium: Pyrography, Block Ink on Plywood
Core Sample reflects layers of time, growth and decay, and how they build upon each other. My personal narrative is expressed in this work, through a continual tie and relationship to nature, its rocks, plants, and ecosystems. The natural environment and our connection to it, is a common thread through all of my creative works in visual arts and music.
Life goes on around us, always changing, adapting, and evolving. We are only here for a short while. These artworks live as physical reminders that people aren’t above all else and have a responsibility to care for and nurture everything that is around us. Though the land is strong, our impact on it is hard and harsh. Our very survival depends on it – not just our survival, but all other beings and the planet, Mother Earth, herself.
In my life and my creative arts practice, I attempt to connect with nature in meaningful ways, rendering her beauty in the hope that I may encourage others to also connect with Mother Earth. My intention is to foster wellbeing within myself and others through the use of art (and music), enabling opportunities to respect and care for this beautiful earth and all the beings both living and non-living, that call this planet home.
