Shoreline, Windowsill, Motherhood
For an exhibition earlier this year Sea Screen Belly, I translated a painting featuring a friend’s view of the sea into a patchwork or quilt. The painting was therefore also a translation, of an image of the view. I initially experienced the view in the palm of my hand, through the screen of my phone, whilst at home. I find this simultaneousness of the sea and home an intriguing duality. The sea for its vastness and unpredictability, and home as a predictable, safe, and contained place.
The premise for this exhibition, Seabed Bedspread is somewhat an extension of the patchwork quilt in Sea Screen Belly titled In Bed with Heather’s View, Riverbed (2021).
This exhibition explores an intersection of intimate domestic space and second-hand experience of the sea. Paintings present and play with notions of ‘the vessel’, suggesting they are more than merely an object but also device for holding history, meaning, association and memory.
Domestic objects such as vessels and jugs are paired with seemingly unrelated seascapes and vistas, mostly borrowed from social media posts. This deliberate coupling of ‘still life’ and ‘landscape’ genres references and creates a transitory or liminal space within the work, allowing the works occupy a space that is both: inside and outside, land and sea, like a windowsill/shoreline/the transition to motherhood. Sally Anderson, 2021
Image: ‘Screenshot of Seatown Orange Still Life Heathers View of South Bondi Multi Tasking’ 2021 acrylic on polycotton 183 x 167 cm
