Claire Fulton Art and Amelia K Fulton Art present an exhibition exploring their sisterhood and upbringing through their vastly different artistic styles. Though having lived together for most of their lives and having such a close bond, the two sisters have developed shockingly different styles reflective of their individual experiences but ultimately underpinned by the same original inspiration.
Claire’s work is a mirror of her mental health and the environment within her mind, reflecting her struggle with bi-polar disorder and life events that have been extremely challenging. Her works feature pop-surreal, quirky and often humorous styles and icons, uplifting, bright and eye-catching. However, scattered among the bright and outrageous is a dark, somber and melancholic streak, communicating an eternal battle with the external environment, commenting on the destructiveness of humanity and the pain of the natural world.
Claire’s emotions are raw and bared for all to see through her art. Using predominantly watercolour and ink, her works are loose, free and often wild. Her pieces don’t follow order, they don’t fit within the lines and they care little about convention, much like Claire herself. Despite having a formal degree in Visual Arts, Claire’s works are distinctly unbound by traditional rules and style guides.
Her younger sister, Amelia, is similarly influenced by the natural world and equally communicates her emotional landscape but in vastly contrasting ways. Amelia’s journey alongside siblings with mental health struggles has led to a pressing need control as much as possible and mitigate feelings of disorder or the sense of being ‘on-the-edge’. It is evident in her work that chaos and messiness is avoided and, indeed, directly opposed, as seen with her choice to pursue the method of pointillism.
Amelia’s works follow order, symmetry and balance, choosing to use white space, pale colours, if not a lack of colour, and show a sense of strictness and control. Pointillism (the method of using only millions of dots to create an image) was a mental exercise that Amelia chose to challenge herself with as a means of catharsis and a type of meditation. Instead of expressing freeness and wildness within her art like her sister, Amelia rather strived to use art as a method of feeling in control; less of an expression as a ritual.
Despite intense origins of inspiration and vastly different artistic practices, the sisters share underpinning values of whimsy, earthliness and a gentle mysticism in their works. Growing up with parents who fostered a love of the natural world in the girls, and a deep history of emotional awareness and insight, the girls have combined their passions for these things and created portfolios highly reflective of their personalities, their struggles and their joys in each other, life and love.
The exhibition, Kin, explores these inherent bonds and similarities and the divergence along their shared time into what is uniquely a visual representation of their experiences. They invite the public, friends and family to explore their works, their stories and their connection
The space is designed to draw audiences along a timeline of artistic development, from the whimsical, to the dark, from early to recent. Audiences are welcomed to view the bonds of Claire and Amelia through a raw and vulnerable window.
