Bea Buckland-Willis

16. Bea Buckland-Willis, Episodes, 2024, plaster cast lino print, 60 x 60cm. NFS

Utilising expanded printmedia installation practice, Episodes act as the artist's attempt to explore pain as a form of memory. If a relief print is the inverse of what has been enacted on a matrix, you might then consider the resulting embossed surface as simply the memory of the plate. To remember something is to multiply it, often until it becomes indistinguishable from the event itself. In this way, Buckland-Willis considers pain as a form of memory. The physicality of carving is meditative, but also painful in their body. Through the ongoing performance of carving, printing and casting, they suggest the resulting prints can be reconsidered as a visual manifestation of memory, and by extension, performing these acts can be considered the ritualisation of pain. A material that is durable but not necessarily archival, plaster undergoes a natural deterioration. Through this medium, Buckland-Willis engages their practice as a means to comprehend and document their lived experience of the medicalisation of the body.

Bea Buckland-Willis is a Sydney-based artist, with a passion for all things print. They are currently undertaking a Master's of Fine Arts at the National Art School (AUS), majoring in Printmaking. Their practice is multi-disciplinary, combining traditional print processes with experimental installation. As a young artist with lived experience of chronic pain, they are concerned with representations of pain and subverting ideas of the ‘normal’ healing experience. Their work has been showcased at art spaces including; The Cutaway (Barangaroo), AIRspace (Marrickville), Artsite (Camperdown) and 321 Project Space (Surry Hills). They have been selected as a finalist in the Blacktown City Art Prize and Tatiara Art Prize. In 2021 they exhibited with the Other Art Fair as a part of the New Futures Program supporting emerging artists. They are also a 2022 recipient of the Megalo Printmaking Residency (Canberra) and the 2023-24 White Creek's Cottage Studio Residency.