ethel warren centre

ethel warren centre, bullsbrook, western australia, 2022

The premise of the residency was to produce works for an exhibition Foraging in the Wastestream at Ellenbrook Gallery. Materials I sourced from the Bullsbrook Recycling Centre included old reference books – gardening books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. Around the time I was making this work, there was a lot of media coverage about the complicated legacy surrounding forced adoption. Using found materials with unknown and obscure histories, the artwork, Semipermeable, creates disjointed connections, and reflects on belonging and identity. Semipermeable works with ideas of dualities and contradictions. Structured text from found encyclopaedias contrasts with emotive handwritten diary entries, a visual weight with fragility and lightness, and freehand mark making with rows of type, to produce a work that represents a sloughed-off porous skin.

Semipermeable (detail) | 2022 | found materials, mixed media | approx. 14 m x 33 cm

Artworks created through children’s workshops, as part of the AiR, with Peter Dailey and Tami Esancy