I was 1 of 12 artists to take part in the ProjectLAB artist development program that stretched from Sept - November 2023.
ProjectLAB is a professional development program for contemporary artists from a range of practices. This intensive program focuses on developing individual artistic practice and contextualising work from concept through to presentation. It was delivered over three months, through a series of intensives, individual consultations, a month-long residency and concludes with an informal public showing. ProjectLAB is an ArtsCoast, Sunshine Coast Council initiative through Spaces for Creatives.
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The title for my ProjectLAB was UNLAYERS
UNLAYERS explores the inner personal landscape of fear, inhibition and perfectionism. These elements have consequential interference on my creations. At a deeper level this work explores the learned behaviours of scarcity, frugality and the perpetuation of perfectionism. This perfectionism, for me, is a defence mechanism that is evidenced in 3 generations of women in my family. UNLAYERS is an attempt to access new channels of abundance, indulgence & frivolity within creative practice as a form of reprogramming.
Part of this work, as a 2 week creative exercise, I tracked my internal dialogue and witnessed this narrative. Whenever an idea surfaced and received automatic rejection from my rational thinking, I wrote the words down on a 4 metre scroll of purple fabric in oversized posca paint lettering.
Using this process as a driver, I hand embellished two of my own pre-existing A1 photographic paper prints with crystals, hand punched eyes, hand-stamped acrylic paint smiley faces and hand poked quilt patterns to form textural reliefs as a 2nd layer of creation. I used this layering of embellishment to challenge my mental resistors while inviting and encouraging playfulness, impulse and adornment into practice and bring new multi-dimensional meaning to the 2D works.
UNLAYERS is installed as a series of 3 works, supported by an arrangement of the leftovers generated from the creative process. The two A1 prints are wall mounted in a corner so they face inwards at each other, while the written dialogue is suspended from a nail 4 metres above the ground so the fabric hangs down the wall like a over-sized scroll.
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As both an exploration in uncovering the subconscious and an opportunity to build on top of the existing, UNLAYERS provides the opportunity to respond to my own work from a new angle and step away from pre-orchestrated outcomes to enter the juicy space of unpredictability.