Image courtesy of the artist.
Bea Buckland-Willis
Beatrice Buckland-Willis is a Sydney based artist, currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Art at the National Art School (SYD). Majoring in Printmaking, she is interested in all things print, and much of her work utilises traditional print processes such as relief, intaglio, lithography and screen. As a young artist with chronic pain issues, Beatrice is concerned with the representation of female pain and subverting ideas of the ‘normal vs. abnormal’ body. Regularly playing with satire and parody, she wishes to break down the idea that art must be serious to be taken seriously.
Her practice is multi-disciplinary, combining traditional print processes with digital technologies and analog photography, often employing collage and found images. Beatrice is passionate about supporting women in print, and has curated two exhibitions as a part of the "Wasteland Series" which are focused on shedding light on the intricacies of the suburban experience through the female gaze.
Tell us about your creative process, what drives your practice?
I think the driving force behind my work has always been to play with materials. I was drawn to printmaking because it is such a material and physical process, which I think helps you formulate ideas and concepts around your artmaking. My visual diaries, which I’ve only recently started exhibiting, help me compose images, thoughts and ideas through collage in a non-committal way, without the pressure of an outcome.
Your experiences with chronic pain are often highlighted in your work through interrogating notions of the body, specifically through a female-lens. Tell us more about how you explore this and the function it serves within your artistic practice.
It’s very important to me, having undergone significant orthopedic surgery in my teens and managing the ongoing pain, that women and their pain is heard and validated, and that we are able to tell our own stories. Experiencing chronic pain is frustrating enough, but especially when combined with mental health issues it becomes very easy for health professionals to palm off the female pain experience as ‘psychosomatic’ rather than looking for the root of the problem or offering a cohesive treatment plan. What’s alarming is after talking with other women about their experiences with health professionals, I came to realise this ordeal is upsettingly common. In my practice, I guess it boils down to being heard. I hope that in being often brutally honest in my depictions of female pain and the frustrations that come with that, somewhere other female-identifying individuals who have experienced this dismissal or are just going through a similar pain experience can see themselves in the work, and feel that validation that they aren’t alone.
This year you have instigated a number of curatorial projects, including the two-part exhibition series ‘Wasteland’, and the Artists Support BLM Auction. How have you found the transition from maker to curator? Does your making practice influence your curatorial vision?
I feel really lucky to have been able to step into a curatorial role at this point in my practice. The idea for the Wasteland show really stemmed from working at NAS with such talented women around me, and just getting sick of waiting for an opportunity to present itself. I think it’s important, especially as women to back yourself and despite having no experience curating I just thought, hey I can do this. After the initial show, it gets easier because you start to work out how you want to run things and feel more confident in your ability. Moving to curating has definitely informed my practice in a positive way, it makes you much more aware of how you want your work to be experienced in and outside of the gallery setting. I think it also helps you to communicate with other curators because you understand the questions they might have and the pressures they’re under in organising an art event, so you can make their life a bit easier, haha.
Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?
That’s so tricky because there are so many! I’ve been following the work of American artist Panteha Abareshi for some years now, and I find her raw and explosive look into chronic pain and the medicalised body incredibly interesting. She’s moved from print-based illustration to video-documented performance work in the past year and her practice is just getting stronger! (TW: her work does often depict blood)
I’ve also been a little bit obsessed with Alexandra Leykauf recently, a German artist who plays with photomedia and screenprint on a large scale, with works that are more sculptural or installation based than traditional prints on the wall. She is interested in reappropriating the male gaze and breaking down the construction of artworks.
I’m also influenced by; Liz Sofield, Mirtha Dermisache, Regine Laas, Sophie Tottie, Elise Rasmussen and Louise Bourgeois just to name a few!
Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?
At the moment I’m trying to pull together my work for the NAS 2020 grad show at the end of the year! But I’m also working towards hopefully curating some more shows next year, and possibly a solo show at some point. My work at the moment is focused around construction imagery as a metaphor for the healing body, and I’m playing with plaster-cast copper plate etching experiments, as well as large scale relief works that will hopefully be a part of the grad show at the end of the year.
