Showing my Blindspot in Ōpunakē
I'm looking forward to my upcoming show in Taranaki, where I am exhibiting past works that I have cut up and reassembled. By dissecting previous paintings, drawings and prints I’m breaking down past narratives and old ideas.
By weaving them together I am reimagining and revivifying them.
Art is pattern, with the potential to soothe, confuse, surprise or alarm. We are pattern-seeking beings. Through our exquisite suite of senses we perceive complex patterns and weave them together moment to moment into a model of who are.
In 2017 I created 100,000 paintings. It was a truly momentous achievement, except that my goal had been to create 1 million! This massive project 'One in a Million' was an attempt to weave together my dual careers of artist and psychiatric nursing.
The aim of the project was to generate income to fund short frank films telling the stories of those with experience of ‘mental illness’. My nine years working in the acute psychiatric unit at Wellington hospital had afforded me the privilege of becoming familiar and even comfortable with “Mental illness”.
I witnessed the strength, resilience, generosity, humour and creativity of the patients and I wanted to show this to others. I hoped to make familiar that which is often sensationalised and to normalise that which is stigmatised. I created a lot of art (550kg to be precise) but have not (as yet) made any films.
The learnings from the project and its fall-out were far reaching and profound including gaining some insight (excuse the pun) into my Blind spots. I have used my ‘one in a million’ paintings as raw material in these new weavings.
In a sense this exhibition is an evolution of the One in a Million project.
BLINDSPOT OPENS 8 JUL – Showing until 18 AUG 2022
From Out of the Blue Studio Gallery, 18 Halse Place, Ōpunakē 4616
Thurs-Mon 1-5pm
Or by appointment 021407424 viv@blacknosugar.com
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