Rebecca O’Shea

Rebecca O’Shea is a Sydney based artist, with a practice engaging in printmaking and painting. O’Shea’s work creates an interplay between the real and imagined to convey a story; exploring the meanings we attribute to objects and symbols, due to their connection with memory, knowledge and narrative. Her work currently examines the fragility of nature, observing the effects human disruption and intervention of the environment.

Rebecca O’Shea has completed a Bachelor of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong, and a Masters of Arts Administration from UNSW Art & Design.

#28 | The Watchers Wait, 2020, lithograph on BFK Rives, A/P from edition of 5. 38 x 56 cm. $480

The Watchers Wait is based on a collection of deadwood in the Matong State Forest New South Wales. It explores the duality between perception and illusion by playing with the notion of pareidolia- the tendency to perceive meaningful imagery in random stimulus or visual patterns. This phenomenon is often experienced by people recognising faces in objects or nature. It is also commonly experienced through the illusion of creating faces, animals or objects in the clouds. 

When exploring the natural environment personalities and stories present themselves. This work aims to emulate the metamorphic sensation of pareidolia and evoke a feeling that there is enchanted life in the decaying deadwood. That the deadwood is still alive with an ambiguous, mythical, animalistic personality. The Watchers is suggestive of being part custodian, part guard, fixed in situ, in gradual decay, watching over the land while waiting to become part of it and continue the delicate cycle.