Reflection speech from the end of my Artist Residency at Chateau
I had two main goals I had in coming into the residency.
The first was a practical one.
I don’t have a studio space back home and I had been working 5 casual jobs so I was quite time and space poor.
I wanted to create a/ or start creating a cohesive body of work.
This I have achieved. I made ten paper works. I started with a plan. The plan changed a little, I experimented on with some different embellishments and plastics. Some I didn’t like, but I’ve got a few new little things that I love that I’ll keep pushing into
So on the technical side, I am really pleased with how that developed, and what I’ll do next.
The second big goal I had was a more conceptual one.
I wanted to really reflect on my artistic voice.
I’ve talked a bit about it already but I am a Christian, and that is central to my identity- spiritually and religiously.
And obviously, I am an artist, secondarily to my faith but still integral to my identity.
This has been uncomfortable since I started art-making seriously because neither community really knows how to embrace the other.
Generally, (obviously there are outliers, and I speak from my experience)
Generally I have seen that,
Christians are dismissive at best and suspicious at worst of contemporary fine arts.
Artists are awkward at best and aggressive at worst of Christianity and Organised religion.
I don’t want to compromise on these two important parts of my voice, because really it is just my one singular voice.
I don’t want to water down my Faith to non-descript spiritual
I don’t want to water my art down to arts and crafternoons.
With those two goals, I made a body of work regarding this concept of Redemption. And trying to make work that speaks truthfully towards both these groups.
I really appreciate the conversations I’ve had with all of you. Hearing your experiences and perspectives. It’s been both encouraging and challenging.
I’ve taken darning as my visual representation of redemption- mending.
Taking a bit of a Kintsugi, Wabi-sabi approach. Beauty in imperfection, Beauty is not without mistakes, but mended mistakes.
So I paint these pictures that appear to be like melting, melting like it’s failing on an atomic level, and mend them by stitch.
The pig is an image used in the Bible for someone who just eats up everything and doesn't say thankyou, so kind of people in general. I picked this to say that mending is promised for People.
As much as the swan is just beautiful, I also picked it because it is an unclean animal as per the old old Jewish laws. As the story goes, Jews found salvation by obedience and righteousness, Jesus comes through and is obedient and righteous so that from then on it is simply by faith that people can receive redemption.
I picked this to say that even religion is melting, even religion is redeemed by Jesus.
And I did the same with a portrait of me. Though I am melting, I am mended by Jesus.
The idea is that everything is melting.
I also want it to be clear that I chose stitch mending for paper because it tragically doesn’t work. It’s a bit of a band-aid on a broken bone type of solution to use thread to fix something that is melting, or thread on ripped paper, because the needle punctures it with every stitch making it weaker again…
I do this to show the limits, the impossibility of mending the world, religion, ourselves, by Rosie the artist/by people in general.
I want to express the tragedy of the slow but sure melting of all the things we know of this world. Things that are all remnants of good and beautiful things but just slightly not right.
I want to express the hope that is promised that God who made, has mended, and will remake things.
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