Sunday, May 23, 2010

Reflecting on the past

It has been a while now since my very successful exhibition at Montsalvat in December and January. I have been on a journey since, both emotional and physical. I have recently returned from a trip overseas (for family health reasons) which have dominated most of this year so far.

But now I have returned I am reflecting on where I have been with my art in the last year or so.

The show at Montsalvat really was a huge achievement, I have produced a large body of work over the last four years and to see so much of it together in such a special place was a delight, and something the younger me would have been really proud to know I would do. But like many experiences they feel different to how you imagine they might, and like most artists there is an awareness of what you have not yet achieved or fulfilled your full vision. Sometimes it takes a while to see what you have done and feel a deeper sense satisfaction. Perhaps that is for a reason, and that constant craving for something illusive, keeps us striving to explore deeper and make more. A wise friend say to me recently that it can be

So reflecting on my art over the last year or so I am pleased. I have truly been practicing my art in a way that is embedded in life, I have made the space for it (clearing space so that I now have a drawing studio and a painting studio! Mind you I end up painting outside most of the time). I have made time for my art and significantly, I feel I have crossed the invisible threshold into 'Professional Artist' realms, although the difference is strange and a matter of defining shades of grey.

The work is a powerfully emotional one, carrying the weigh of grief I feel for the earth since industrialisation, and Europeans came to claim, kill and divide this land.


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