Creative Development Grant
Inner West Council
Grant: $5000
Project: Supporting the development of my figurative artistic practice through funding live model classes and focused studio work. Exploring gendered power and subtle threats of violence against women through adaptive contexts, I aim to create a powerful body of work under the mentorship of professional figurative artist Carmel Byrne. With the goal of staging a solo show at Scratch Art Space, this project will contribute to ongoing conversations about subversive control and aggression towards women in Australia.
​
More information via IWC Website.
​
* Source:https://australianfemicidewatch.org/database/
​
Studio Audio
See What You Made Me Do by Jess Hill
Fight Like A Girl and Boys Will be Boys by Clementine Ford
Wifedom by Anna Funder
If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie
The Body Keeps Score Bessel Van Der Kolk
01: research
Femicides
In a year of 73 DV murders*, 2023 saw high profile cases centre on story of female (cis-white-het) victimhood over the systemic violence of male perpetrators. Furious like so many, when this grant project began in October 2023, I averaged out the ages of reported DV murder victims to date- to sit there staring at my own age of 39. It's everywhere. and it's nowhere.
How and where does this conversation begin with the men in the room? There is such discomfort and rejection of the subject spawning reflexive tropes like not all men and good blokes just snapping.
​
How do we expand upon Margret Atwood's summation 'Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them'
which skirts the line of humiliation and humility in a male form?
02: draw + writing
Life drawing and processing
Attending weekly life drawing sessions and writing on the subject as I began to process the project, initial ideas centred around the female form (more commonly modelled) and her connection to land. Combining landscape and female form was an early point on the creative path and then put to the side as I worked to centre the men. The shadow men they live inside, hidden and contemptuous.
03: finding the lens
Drawing on experience
Something I will only briefly touch on here, is that I have lived experience with both family violence and sexual assaults. The latter, sadly fairly typical of women having lived out in the world for any a few decades. This year I will enter my 40s and view it as a rebirth, a fresh new decade untainted with the violation of my body by another.
​
These experiences shape my work, fuel motivation and hold space for a collective female rage against repression and abuse.
04
Project Name
This is your Project description. Provide a brief summary to help visitors understand the context and background of your work. Click on "Edit Text" or double click on the text box to start.
